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Independent cinema champion extends activities into television

Wild Bunch is extending its activities into the co-production and distribution of TV series with the creation of Wild Bunch TV, overseen by the company’s head of international sales, Carole Baraton.

“Wild Bunch TV will initiate international TV series from all around the world, provide coproduction and financing services, and, finally, distribute and commercialize them worldwide,” the company said in a statement.

The firm has pulled together a team of professionals experienced in the TV entertainment business, comprising Diana Bartha (development and international distribution), Thomas Triboit (acquisitions) and Aurélia Porret (marketing).

Veteran international fiction producer Georges Campana is also on board as an advisor.

Paris-based Wild Bunch, which has been pulling together the new TV division since before Cannes, will make its debut outing at Mipcom with two initial acquisitions Medici: Masters of Florence and Four Seasons in Havana.

Medici: Masters of Florence is the latest project from prolific...

Relaxed travel restrictions from the U.S. to Cuba are apparently extending to the small screen.

Starz is developing Havana Quartet, a detective series set in the balmy island nation and starring Antonio Banderas (Evita, The Expendables 3), the network announced Friday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills.

PhotosFall TV Preview: Who’s In? Who’s Out? Your Guide to 75+ Casting Moves

Based on a Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura’s four-book series — Havana Blue, Havana Gold, Havana Red and Havana Black — the series will focus on Banderas’ Mario Conde, a hard-drinking, romantic fella who longs...

Antonio Banderas is set to play the lead in premium cabler Starz's new drama series "Havana Quartet" which eOne will produce and distribute worldwide.

Based on the popular noir-tinged novel series by Leonardo Padura, Banderas will play a hard-drinking, romantic Cuban Police Detective named Mario Conde who longs to be a writer but settled for a job as a detective. It sis

Eduardo Machado ("Magic City") will pen the pilot and serve as executive producer alongside Banderas, Peter Nadermann, Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny.

Source: Variety...

French director Laurent Cantet ("The Class") is set to direct the Spanish-language, Cuban-set drama "Vuelta a Itaca" for Full House.

Set on a rooftop terrace in present-day Havana, the story follows Amadeo who returns after a 16-year exile. Over one night, he and his childhood friends retrace their lives.

Cantet and Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura co-wrote the script, while Didar Domehri, Gael Nouaille and Laurent Baudens will produce. Shooting aims to begin later this year.

Source: Variety...

Del Toro joins six other directors for 7 Days in Havana, an anthology that treads a fine line between advertorial and artistry

In the scramble for financial backing, even big-shot film directors must take money where they find it. Shane Meadows took a £500,000 commission from Eurostar, and turned out Somers Town. Morgan Spurlock made a satirical virtue of it with sponsorship from juice manufacturer Pom Wonderful for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. That, presumably, is part of the reason why film-makers of the calibre of Gaspar Noé, Laurent Cantet and Elia Suleiman accepted the invitation of rum magnate Havana Club, through its cultural arm Havana Cultura, to collaborate in a short film anthology called 7 Days in Havana. It might, just might, be designed to promote Havana.

As it turns out, 7 Days in Havana treads that fine line between advertorial and artistry, with a distinguished Cuban novelist, Leonardo Padura, overseeing the screenplay,...

With Paris and New York already getting their big screen valentines in two omnibus movies, and with Syndey brewing one of their own, Havana is going to get their time to shine with "7 Days In Havana." And to get a bit of sun soaked flavor before summer is here in full force, the first trailer has arrived.

A tremendously strong batch of directors have come together for this one -- Benicio Del Toro, Laurent Cantet ("The Class"), Gaspar Noé ("Enter the Void"), Pablo Trapero ("Carancho"), Elia Suleiman, Julio Medem ("Sex And Lucia") and Juan Carlos Tabio -- in a film that unlike some of the films that have come before, will see characters recur in everyone's short films. Josh Hutcherson and Daniel Bruhl are the two starrier names that appear (though, keep an eye out for Emir Kusturica as well) in the pic penned by Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura that...

While omnibus films tend to be a mixed bag, we keep going back to them because the talent always seems to promise great things, and in the case of the forthcoming "7 Days In Havana," that's no exception. Benicio Del Toro, Laurent Cantet ("The Class"), Gaspar Noe ("Enter The Void"), Pablo Trapero ("Carancho"), Elia Suleiman, Julio Medem ("Sex And Lucia") and Juan Carlos Tabio are each set to helm a segment of the forthcoming film. The ambitious undertaking will have recurring characters in each of the shorts and the script will penned by Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura (he'll co-write Medem's…...

Helmers Laurent Cantet, Gaspar Noe, Pablo Trapero, Elia Suleiman, Julio Medem, Cuba's Juan Carlos Tabio and Benicio del Toro are joining perhaps one of the rare omnibus projects worth mentioning. Finally a short film collage that is a bit more organic, 7 Days in Havana is said to be an inside "view of Cuba, introducing audiences to an eclectic young Havana and its music scene." The project will be produced by Morena Films' Alvaro Longoria, Fabien Pisani, Domehri, and Full House's Gael Nouaille and Laurent Baudens. Variety reports that "Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura will coordinate screenplays, co-writing Medem's and Tabio's films. Cuban thesps Ana de Armas, Mirta Ibarra, Vladimir Cruz and Jorge Perugorria play linking characters." Gist: Del Toro will helm a sometimes fictionalized docu on a U.S. tourist's first 24 hours in Cuba; Medem portrays a love triangle; Trapero tracks an actor who arrives in Havana to receive...