BOTóN FILMS
Ecuadorian film production company founded in 2019 by Joe Houlberg Silva. It seeks new production models that respond to the realities of filmmaking in Ecuador and Latin America, focusing on auteur-driven projects that take creative risks in both content and form.
Notable projects include:
OZOGOCHE (2023), which had its world premiere at IDFA and was later screened at festivals including Havana, Guadalajara, Slovenia, Margaret Mead (NY), Docs Against Gravity (Poland), DokFest (Munich), and FICCI (Cartagena), where it won Best Documentary, earning Oscar eligibility;
AVE (2023), a short film that premiered at TIFF and was subsequently shown at festivals worldwide;
HIEDRA (2025), premiering as part of the official selection of the Venice Biennale in the Orizzonti section. This international co-production received support from the Ecuadorian National Production Fund (IFCI), the Ibermedia Co-Production Fund, France’s CNC Aide aux cinémas du monde, Mexico’s EFICINE, and a Catalan production fund. It was also part of Cinemart in Rotterdam, BrLab in Brazil, Ikusmira Berriak, and the San Sebastián Co-Production Forum.
The company is currently developing AMAPOLA (2026), which participated in the Locarno Open Doors Hub, received the Ibermedia Co-Development Fund, and recently won the Ecuadorian Production Fund from IFCI; and PITE Y PASE (2026), the debut feature documentary by director Andrés Cornejo, whose short films have premiered at festivals such as IDFA, HotDocs, and EDOC.
THE IVY
feature film – fiction – 2025
Azucena, a 30-year-old woman, spies on the teenagers living in a foster home. In their games and sibling-like bonds, she searches for something from her own past, driven by a traumatic event that marked her adolescence and left her emotionally suspended in time. She is especially drawn to Julio, a 17-year-old boy. Although their social worlds are far apart, their shared wounds, laughter, and mutual discovery lead them on an Oedipal journey to the rocks of a volcano. There, far from everything, these two characters shaped by absence transform into something else.
PRIZES
Official Selection – Venice Biennale Orizzonti
Ecuador Production Fund – IFCI
EFICINE – Mexico
CNC Aide aux cinémas du monde – France
Catalan Fund
Cinema in Construction – Toulouse
Cinemart – IFFR PRO
Cinemart Darkroom
BrLab – Brazil
Ikusmira Berriak – Spain
Co-Production Forum – San Sebastián
AMAPOLA
feature film – fiction – 2026
In a shelter hidden deep within a frailejón forest, a group of teenage girls—victims of sex trafficking—live temporarily. Accustomed to a nocturnal schedule, the girls spend their days sleeping on the floors and tables of the house, caring for the babies they’ve had—children of their captors. At night, none of them sleep, caught in intense drug withdrawal from the substances they were once forced to consume.
PRIZES
- Locarno Open Doors HUB
- Production Fund Ecuador IFCI
- ANCINE Brazil Minority Co-Production Fund
- Prix Fiction Award – Biarritz BAL
- Ibermedia Co-Production Fund
OZOGOCHE
feature – documentary – 2023
The Cuviví is the only bird that inexplicably commits suicide. While most of the migratory human population in the Americas travels from south to north, this grassland bird flies in the opposite direction. Don Feliciano awaits their arrival once a year to harvest their carcasses along the vast shores of the Ozogoche lagoons. His granddaughter Sisa, a young girl entering puberty and dreaming of new opportunities, must decide whether her future lies within the community or far from it. As the Kichwa Indigenous community awaits the return of those who migrated toward the U.S.–Mexico border, the birds’ pilgrimage is welcomed as nourishment. Both Feliciano and his family struggle to preserve their culture, threatened by the lure of emigration.
PRIZES
- IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) – World Premiere
- Havana International Film Festival – Cuba
- Cartagena International Film Festival (FICCI) – Best Documentary (Oscar-qualifying)
- Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG) – Mexico
- Dok.Fest München – Germany
- Millennium Docs Against Gravity – Poland
- Margaret Mead Film Festival – New York
- EDOC (Encuentros del Otro Cine) – Ecuador
- Latinamerika i Fokus Film Festival (LAIF) – Sweden – Audience Award
- Cámara Lúcida Film Festival
- Kunturñawi Festival – Best Documentary, Best Cinematography, Best Editing
- Premios Colibrí – Best Editing
- Premios Platino – Shortlist for Best Documentary and Best Sound Direction
- MOVE IT! Film Festival – Nominated for Human Rights Awards
ClaP Latin American Film Festival in Paris – Best Film Award from the University Jury
BIRD
short film – fiction – 2023
A group of teenage girls who are victims of sex trafficking live temporarily in a shelter hidden in an Ecuadorian forest. Small details reveal the horror they’ve endured — invisible, yet ever-present.
PRIZES
- Official Selection & World Premiere – TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) 2023
- Equis – Feminist Film Festival – Ecuador
- Bogoshorts – Best Short Film
- Havana International Film Festival
- Cinelatino Toulouse
- Cinemaatick – Scotland
- KISFF (Kyiv International Short Film Festival) – Ukraine
- Vienna Shorts – Austria
- Equis – Feminist Film Festival – Ecuador
ECHOES FROM THE WORLDS
feature film – fiction – 2026
Quito, 1949. Leonardo Páez, a young sound technician and radio playwright, comes up with an adaptation of The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles, broadcast as if it were real. The show throws the whole country into chaos when an angry crowd, convinced the Martian invasion is true, burns down Radio Quito after discovering it was a misinformation and answers with fire. In the middle of distorted frequencies and burning hallways, Leonardo gets caught in a storm where truth, fiction, and mass hysteria mix together. Eight people die, and a trial tries to find out who’s to blame. But the verdict isn’t enough; those who heard him never forgive him for touching a nerve and bringing to light what the city had kept hidden.
PRIZES
- Official Selection & World Premiere – TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) 2023
- Equis – Feminist Film Festival – Ecuador
- Bogoshorts – Best Short Film
- Havana International Film Festival
- Cinelatino Toulouse
- Cinemaatick – Scotland
- KISFF (Kyiv International Short Film Festival) – Ukraine
- Vienna Shorts – Austria
- Equis – Feminist Film Festival – Ecuador
CONTACT
Telf.: +593 984620149
E-mail: info@botonfilms.com
botonfilms@gmail.com
https://vimeo.com/botonfilms
