Manuela Martelli

Manuela Abril Martelli Salamovich (born April 16, 1983) is a Chilean film and television actress and director best known for her roles in the films B-Happy and Machuca. She starred with the famous Dutch actor Rutger Hauer in the Chilean-Italian film Il Futuro, based on Roberto Bolaño's novel A Little Lumpen Novelita. Her feature debut 1976 was shown at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival at the Director's Fortnight section.

Biography
On April 16, 1983, Martelli was born in Santiago de Chile. Martelli's parents are Nicolás Martelli, of Italian descent, and Marian Salamovich, of Croatian descent.

Martelli studied at Saint George's College, Santiago and at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In 2010, she enrolled at Temple University, USA, where she graduated with a Master's degree in Film Studies.

She started acting in her teen ages. Martelli played the main role in the film B-Happy by Gonzalo Justiniano. Later she had roles in the TV series Huaiquimán y Tolosa and movies like Machuca, Radio Corazón and Malta con Huevo. In 2010 she appeared in Canal 13's telenovela Feroz.

In 2014, she emerged as a director with a short film Apnea. Her 2015 short Land Tides was a part of Factory Programme and premiered at the Cannes Director's Fortnight. In 2021, she filmed her feature debut 1976. It was screened at numerous festivals around the world and won multiple awards, among them the Sutherland Award for best first feature at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival, Best Debut Film Award at Jerusalem Film Festival, Best Actress Award at TIFF, Platino Award for Best Debut Film, etc.

As of 2022, Martelli has been working on second feature, The Meltdown (El deshielo). It was presented at Ventana Sur’s 5th Proyecta co-production forum, and won the second Coprocity Development Prize. The Meltdown is the second part of the trilogy initiated with 1976.