Cannes winner Diego Céspedes preps wild second feature
Cannes winner Diego Céspedes is developing his sophomore feature, The Case of the Boy Who Lost His Heart — a fog-shrouded 1992 thriller from Quijote Films about a disgraced detective probing heartless murders. The follow-up arrives after his Un Certain Regard win and a historic spot on Cannes' main competition jury. Chile's rising director is betting his next chapter will be as bold as his debut.
Key Takeaways
- Diego Céspedes is prepping The Case of the Boy Who Lost His Heart with Quijote Films after winning Cannes' Un Certain Regard for The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo.
- The new film is a 1992-set thriller about detective Ferrari investigating murders where victims are found without hearts.
- Céspedes became the first Chilean filmmaker since Raúl Ruiz in 2002 — and certainly the youngest — to serve on Cannes' main competition jury.
- Producer Giancarlo Nasi calls the project "completely wild" and unlike anything the company has developed before.
- The feature remains in prep, with no release date announced in the exclusive report.
Who is Diego Céspedes and why does his second film matter?
Diego Céspedes has become one of Latin America's most closely watched new voices after his debut, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (La Misteriosa Mirada del Flamenco), took the top prize in Cannes' Un Certain Regard last year. Variety describes that film as an offbeat study of a transgender commune in the Chilean desert at the onset of the 1980s AIDS epidemic.
The 31-year-old director's path to Cannes runs deep. His short The Melting Creatures premiered in the festival's Critics' Week before his feature breakthrough. Flamingo was also the only Chilean feature nominated for the Premios Platino last April — a milestone producer Giancarlo Nasi called the culmination of years of intense work.
For fans tracking streaming and TV alerts, Céspedes' follow-up signals that festival darlings are not one-hit wonders. His sophomore project lands as Chilean cinema gains fresh global momentum on the Croisette.
What is The Case of the Boy Who Lost His Heart about?
According to Variety's exclusive report, the film unfolds in a fog-shrouded Chilean town around 1992. Disgraced detective Ferrari, 59, investigates a string of murders: men found without their hearts, with locals blaming a monstrous woman.
With assistant Sheyla Williams, 32, Ferrari follows clues to a family of women who seasonally harvest giant-lettuces. The investigation peels back folklore to expose the dictatorship's lingering trauma and a murderous hatred of dissident bodies.
Quijote Films is backing the project with Nasi, who told Variety it is "beautiful and completely wild, unlike anything we've developed before" — a sharp pivot from the intimate desert drama that launched Céspedes.
How did Cannes jury duty shape this next chapter?
News of the second feature arrives after another career landmark. Last May, Céspedes joined the 79th Cannes Film Festival's main competition jury — the first Chilean filmmaker invited since Raúl Ruiz in 2002, and certainly the youngest ever to hold the post.
Nasi said watching Céspedes on the Official Competition jury was "deeply moving" and had "tremendous impact in Chile and across the region." Céspedes himself framed the new film as a fresh start: after everything the past years brought, beginning a new project feels like opening a new chapter with new faces and reunited collaborators.
When will audiences see the film?
Variety reports Céspedes is still prepping the sophomore pic, with no premiere date or distributor attached. Given his rapid rise from Critics' Week short to Un Certain Regard champion, industry eyes will likely stay on festival announcements first.
For now, the buzz is built on pedigree and premise. A politically charged genre thriller from a Cannes-anointed director is exactly the kind of title acquisition teams scout before it hits the market. Until cameras roll, The Case of the Boy Who Lost His Heart remains one of the most intriguing projects on the 2026 watchlist.