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The 76th Berlin Film Festival, which winds down on Sunday, Feb. 22, served as the setting for a new production announcement: French company Epicentre Films has formally boarded Dog Legs (Patas de perro), the upcoming feature from Chilean filmmaker Matias Rojas. The project brings together producers from several countries and centers on a highly unusual literary adaptation. At its core, Dog Legs adapts the 1965 novel by Chilean writer Carlos Droguett, a text often described as hybrid and unsettling, and reimagines its themes for a contemporary cinematic audience.
International producing team and distribution backing
The film’s production roster is deliberately transnational: lead production is handled by Chile’s A Simple Vista under Tomás Gerlach Mora, with Colombian producer Federico Durán and German partner Linus Günther of Klinker also attached. On the distribution side, Epicentre Films — led by Daniel Chabannes, Julie Bergeron, Birgit Kemmer and Corentin Sénéchal — has committed to the project, adding it to a slate that already includes films such as Colombia’s Oscar-entry A Poet, for which Epicentre secured French distribution rights ahead of its Cannes premiere last May. This alignment of producers and sales agents highlights an increasingly common financing model where regional funds and cross-border partners join to elevate local stories to international markets.
The story and central performances
Set in a remote town in southern Chile, Dog Legs follows the fragile life of Bobi, a child born with canine‑like legs who lives hidden by his family. The narrative shifts when Carlos, a solitary newcomer to the community, takes an interest in integrating Bobi into public life. Actor Alfredo Castro — known for commanding, often transgressive roles — portrays Carlos, a figure whose compassion is met with suspicion and escalating hostility from the townspeople. The film interrogates how communities draw boundaries between the labeled “normal” and “abnormal,” and how those lines inflict exclusion and violence.
Thematic focus and director’s approach
Rojas frames the work as a meditation on hybridity and liminality, using the story’s physical and psychological oddities to probe questions of identity, migration and social marginalization. He has described his reading of Droguett’s novel as immersive, pointing to its stream‑of‑consciousness voice and its portrayal of untreated psychiatric conditions and loneliness. On screen, Rojas plans for a camera strategy that will follow Bobi’s movement between the intimate and the communal: the visual language aims to alternate between the contemplative and the visceral so the audience experiences both interiority and public reaction.
Development path and production timeline
Dog Legs has been developed on the international festival and co‑production circuit, participating in notable industry platforms including the Guadalajara Co‑Production Meeting, Sitges FanPitch, Cinéma en Développement Toulouse, the Venice Production Bridge and the Cannes Marché du Film. The project later arrived at the EFM during the Berlinale, a typical route for films that are assembling multi‑country financing and creative partners. Lead produced by A Simple Vista, this will be Rojas’s third feature and is in an advanced financing phase: Chilean public funding has already been secured, with additional financing from co‑producing countries expected in 2026.
Locations and next steps
Production planning currently targets a location shoot in Valdivia in southern Chile, scheduled for 2027, once the remaining financing elements are in place. The film’s producers emphasize that the remote setting is integral to the story’s atmosphere and to the social dynamics that propel the drama. With Epicentre’s involvement on the distribution side and the multinational production team in place, Dog Legs is positioned to move from development into principal photography when all co‑production agreements are finalized.
For audiences and industry observers, the film represents a fusion of literary heritage and contemporary cinematic concerns: it adapts a celebrated but challenging Chilean novel into a film that foregrounds questions about belonging and the social construction of the monstrous. With Alfredo Castro attached and a strong slate of international partners, Dog Legs is a project to watch as it completes financing and prepares to shoot in Valdivia, bringing a distinctly Chilean story to an international arena.