Manuela Martelli is part of a Chilean film renaissance that hasn’t really slowed down. From Pablo Larraín and Sebastián Lelio to Maite Alberdi, Dominga Sotomayor, and others, Chilean cinema has been on a major international run for years now, and Martelli’s “Chile ’76” placed her firmly in that conversation. Now her follow-up, “The Meltdown,” is continuing that breakout on the festival and international-release circuit.
The trailer has arrived for the film’s French release, where “The Meltdown” will go out under the title “The Thaw.” The film premiered earlier this year in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and will open in French theaters on August 26.
Written and directed by Martelli, “The Meltdown” is set in Chile in 1992, with the country still scarred by the Pinochet dictatorship. The story follows 9-year-old Inès, who is staying with her grandparents at their ski resort hotel when she befriends Hanna, a young German athlete. After Hanna disappears without a trace, Inès tries to understand what happened—and, inevitably, what the adults around her are trying not to say.
The film stars Maya O’Rourke as Inès, Maia Domagala as Hanna, Saskia Rosendahl as Lina, Jakub Gierszał as Alexander, Paulina Urrutia as Techa, and Mauricio Pešutić as Ricardo.
Our review from Cannes, titled “The Meltdown,” called it “quietly commanding, narratively rich sophomore film,” noting how Martelli uses a missing teenager and a child’s point of view to examine class, complicity, and national identity in post-dictatorship Chile. That’s familiar territory for Martelli, who has a gift for locating political rupture in private spaces, where history isn’t delivered in speeches so much as felt in silences, glances, and family secrets.
Here’s the official synopsis from France’s Les Films du Losange:
Chile, 1992. The country is still scarred by years of dictatorship. While staying with her grandparents at their ski resort hotel, 9-year-old Inès befriends Hanna, a young athlete from Germany. When Hanna disappears without a trace, the child tries to understand…
“The Meltdown,” under its French title “The Thaw,” opens in France on August 26. Watch the trailer below.
Born in Chile, raised in Canada, now living in Brooklyn, NY, Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2008. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, MuchMusic, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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