News

Madrid — Barcelona-based mini-major Filmax has secured world sales rights outside Spain to “Entre dos Aguas” (Between Two Waters), one of the two Spanish world premieres in its main competition, directed by Isaki Lacuesta who lifted the festival’s top Golden Shell in 2011 with “The Double Steps.”

BTeam Pictures, the distribution arm of BTeamProds, one of the film’s producers, will release “Between Two Waters” in Spanish theaters on Nov. 30.

Written by Lacuesta, Isa Campo, also “Between Two Waters” producer, and Fran Araujo, “Between Two Waters” reprises the two gypsy brother characters and actors Isra and Cheito of “The Legend of Time,” Lacuesta’s second feature which won him a staunch supporters among some critics, Spain’s “El Pais” calling it a “miracle.”

“Expectations are high as ‘The Legend of Time’ was deeply appreciated by the press and audience alike when released 12 years ago and Lacuesta’s latest film, Goya winner ‘The Next Skin,...

Exclusive: Melody [pictured] piques buyer interest after Montreal wins.

Doc & Film has scored sales on Belgian director Bernard Bellefroid’s surrogate mother drama Melody following an award-winning premiere at the Montreal Film Festival earlier this month.

The tale of a mother-daughter relationship that blooms between an older woman and the younger surrogate mother of her unborn child has sold to Canada (Axia Films), Taiwan (Cineplex) and Benelux (Cineart).

Co-stars Rachel Blake and Lucie Debay shared the best actress prize at Montreal where the film played in competition and also picked up a special mention from the ecumenical jury.

Paris-based Doc & Film have also sealed new deals on Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery which screened in the Tiff Docs section.

In Toronto, it has sold to Switzerland (Xenix), Spain (Surtsey) and Benelux (Cineart).

The film is due to be released in the Us by Zipporah Films on Nov 5 after a premiere at New York’s Film Forum theatre.

Cannes...

New film projects by the likes of Aktan Arym Kubat (The Light Thief), Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg), Taika Waititi (Eagle vs Shark), Kelly Reichardt (Meek's Cutoff), Úrszula Antoniak (Code Blue and Nothing Personal), Quentin Dupieux (Rubber and the Sundance selected Wrong), Florin Serban (If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle), Ruben Östlund (pictured above) and Aditya Assarat (Wonderful Town) are among the 36 projects participating in Rotterdam’s 29th co-production market CineMart (where a whopping 850 potential co-financiers add coin to future projects). Among the filmmakers we are keeping a closer eye on, we see that Athina Rachel Tsangari's breakout Venice-winning Attenberg helped her secure producing help for her next feature, "Duncharon," - Haos Films will be joined by Faliro House Productions, Maharaja Films and one of our favorite outfitters in The Match Factory. Another female auteur in The Netherlands' Úrszula Antoniak is working on Nude Area with Topkapi Films and Pandora Film producing.

Ridley Scott's Robin Hood showed in Cannes this past May, and one year later we might get a Hood-like eighteenth century hero in Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s fourth feature. Taking a page from Abdellatif Kechiche, Cineuropa reports that Ameur-Zaïmeche (director has seen his previous two films Bled Number One and Dernier Maquis shown on the Croisette) will once again go in front and behind the camera in Les Chants de Mandrin - a French/Belgian/Spanish co-production that started shooting this week. The cast includes Sylvain Roume, Abel Jafri, Sylvain Rifflet, Salim Ameur-Zaïmeche, Christian Milia-Darmezin, Kenji Meunier, Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Nolot. Les Chants de Mandrin opens with the execution of famous outlaw Louis Mandrin, a popular hero of the mid-eighteenth century, this sees the historical figure and his companions set out on a new, risky smuggling campaign in the French provinces. Protected by their weapons, the smugglers organise illegal...

Shanghai--Spanish TV movie "The Voice of the Pamano," won China's biggest small screen award Friday night at the closing night of the 16th Shanghai Television Festival.

In an awards ceremony Friday night hosted by festival organizers the Shanghai Media Group, the golden Magnolia Award for Best TV Film went to the Spanish drama depicting a schoolteacher uncovering the truth about the WWII era political conflict a small Pyrenees village.

The drama, produced by Televisio de Catalunya, Diagonal TV and Mallerich Films Paco Poch, also won the Magnolia award for Best Screenplay, honoring writers Xesc Barcelo and Eduard Cortes.

The Magnolia award for Best TV director went to Torsten Fischer of Germany of for his biopic of the late Austrian-born German actress Romy Schneider, played in "Romy," by actress Jessica Schwarz. The film is a production of the Phoenix Film in coproduction with Swr, Ard Degeto, Wdr, Ndr, Orf and France...