News

Catalan films have impressed at festivals and awards ceremonies around the world for years now as the region continues to punch far above its weight in the screen industries. As the fall festival season transitions into awards season, we wanted to take a look at the buzziest Catalan titles set to make their debut sometime next year.

Carla Simon, among the most exciting young filmmakers working in Europe today, will return with her fourth feature, “Romeria,” which is shooting now. The film tells the story of Marina, who travels to Vigo in the northwest of Spain to meet her biological father’s family after he dies of AIDS. The film is particularly close to Simon, who lost her parents to the disease when she was only six years old.

Óliver Laxe made headlines when his next production, “After,” was unveiled in January with Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo producing alongside...

Spanish filmmaker Jaime Rosales has chosen the backdrop of Morlaix for his eighth feature film..which goes by the title of the location. Production is set to begin next month. Casting is currently in the works on the drama for what will be a two-month shoot produced by the Les Productions Balthazar folks. Rosales who has been to Cannes on several occasions including what we consider his masterwork in Petra (2018 Directors’ Fortnight selection) was last at the San Sebastián International Film Festival with 2022 preemed Girasoles silvestres (aka Wild Flowers) which hasn’t travelled well. Morlaix could ideally be ready for a bid at the Cannes Film Festival.…...

Recently, there has been a consistent tide of well crafted and highly regarded films coming out of Spain. “Alcarràs,” “The Beasts,” “Lullaby,” “La Maternal,” “Prison 77,” to name just the five that the Spanish Academy Goyas singled out in early February.

This level of quality, over a short period, is getting noticed internationally. Last week the Glasgow Film Festival, Scotland’s largest, shone a light on eight films in its Viva el Cine Español program. A cultural moment is a strange beast, hard to fathom, but there are strong signals that Spanish Film is having one.

In addition to the aforementioned five, Glasgow added Andrea Bagney’s debut “Ramona,” “Wild Flowers,” from Jaime Rosales, another debut with Elena López Riera’s “The Water,” and a Penelope Cruz starrer, in Juan Diego Botto’s “On The Fringe.”

Glasgow’s Festival co-director Allison Gardner told Variety: “We seem to be seeing films...

Packing its first full-on onsite edition since the pandemic, Spain’s San Sebastian Festival has never been busier or bigger. 10 Takes on what is shaping up as a vibrant edition:

Playing Off Powerful Market Forces

Nine of Netflix’s 20 Top 10 non-English-language films and TV series are sourced from Spain or Latin America. Platforms are battling to tie down talent.

This year, eight movies from Spain and Latin America play in competition alone at San Sebastian, the most important film event in the Spanish-speaking world. The fest’s main sidebar is its New Directors strand. San Sebastian’s focus on the Spanish-speaking world and new talent now aligns with powerful market forces. That fact plays out over the 2022 edition.

San Sebastian’s New Creative Investors’ Conference

CAA Media Finance is teaming with San Sebastian to organize the festival’s first Creative Investors’ Conference, running Sept. 19-20. Attendees take in international film...

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The 70th San Sebastián Film Festival unveiled its competition line-up Tuesday, with new works from award-winning directors Sebastián Lelio, Hong Sang-soo and Ulrich Seidl in the running for the 2022 Golden Shell.

Chilean filmmaker Lelio, who won an Oscar for best international feature with A Fantastic Woman (2017), will premiere his latest, The Wonder, in San Sebastián. The period drama, based on the Emma Donoghue novel, is set in mid-19th century Ireland and stars Florence Pugh, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Burke and Toby Jones.

The prolific Hong Sang-Soo, who just won the Jury Prize in Berlin in February for The Novelist’s Film, brings his latest minimalist drama, Walk Up, to the Spanish festival. The plot involves a middle-aged film director and his estranged daughter who are being shown around a building owned by an interior designer.

Seidl, the Austrian director who has made a career...

Further titles include Mikel Gurrea’s ‘Suro’, Pilar Palomero’s ‘La Maternal’ and TV series ‘Offworld’.

A total of 18 Spanish productions have been selected for the 70th San Sebastian Film Festival, running from September 16-24, including Fernando Franco’s The Rite Of Spring (La Consagración De La Primavera).

This is Franco’s third feature, following the Silver Shell for best actress received by Marian Álvarez for 2013’s The Wound (La Herida) and special screening title Dying (Morir) in 2017.

The Rite Of Spring (La Consagración De La Primavera) follows the meeting between an 18-year-old girl, played by Valèria Sorolla, and a young boy with cerebral palsy,...

Fernando Franco’s coming of age drama “The Rite of Spring” and Mikel Gurrea’s rural drama “Suro” will vie for the top Golden Seashell at September’s 70th San Sebastian Festival, the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world.

Also making the cut are Jaime Rosales’s female emancipation tale “Wild Flowers” and Pilar Palomero’s teen motherhood story “La Maternal.”

The four titles form part of a Spanish film line-up which looks to be “the strongest Spanish movie presence at San Sebastian in the 11 years I’ve been directing the festival,” San Sebastian director José Luis Rebordinos said on Friday.

One or two more Spanish films could still be added to the selection, including one more in New Directors, he went on.

Galvanizing the selection is new talent. Five of the 10 movies in San Sebastian’s principal sections for new movies – main competition, out of competition, special screenings,...

Marc Recha, director of “Pau and His Brother,” which played in Cannes competition, is initiating post-production on “Wild Road,” a thriller produced by Barcelona-based director label Parallamps.

Heaed by Montse Germán, a star in Cesc Gay’s “Fiction” and Sergi López” (“Pan’s Labyrinth”), “Wild Road” follows 50-year Ona, who is about to fulfill her dream of piloting a light aircraft. Then a chance encounter with some Serb ex-combatants will change her life and that of her loved ones, forcing her to face up to her own past.

A Locarno Fipresci prize winner for “The Cherry Tree,” in “Wild Road” Recha aims for a “cinema d’auteur for a wider audience. It’s a disturbing thriller but full of humanity,” producer Ana Stanič told Variety announcing “strong interest for the film in Spain, Central and Eastern Europe and further abroad.”

A sales agent deal is close to being closed.

The move...

From Berlin Golden Bear winner ‘Alcarrás’ to Cannes Competition title ‘Pacifiction,’ these projects will represent Catalonia at Cannes.

Alcarràs

Director: Carla Simón

The 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner, a family farm drama marking the flagship title for Catalonia’s newest generation of cineastes.

Sales: MK2 Films

Amazing Elisa

Director: Sadrac González-Perellón

The next from 2017 BiFan Grand Jury Prize winner González- Perellón (“Black Hollow Cage”), once more mixing fantasy and family dynamics as Elisa, 12, seeks revenge after her mother’s tragic death. La Charito Films produces.

Sales: Filmax

The Beasts

Director: Rodrigo Sorogoyen

One of 2022’s most awaited Spanish titles, selected for Cannes Premiere, a Galicia-set thriller from Oscar-nominee Sorogoyen (“Mother”), produced by Arcadia, Caballo Films and Le Pacte.

Sales: Latido Films

The Communion Girl

Director: Víctor García

Film Factory’s genre play for Cannes: A revenge thriller drawing on an urban legend about a girl in a communion dress.

Sales: Film...

Last month, Catalan auteur Agustí Villaronga swept pretty much every prize out at Spain’s Malaga Film Festival with “The Belly of the Sea.”

The plaudits prized Villaronga’s large artistic ambition in re-creating arguably the most ghastly shipwreck in history — the 1816 sinking of French frigate Meduse off the coast of modern Mauritania — in a film shot in an abandoned wine cellar. It mixes historical re-creation, contemporary photo and doc footage and sea sculptures of the barnacled bodies of the drowned.

Next up for Villaronga, however, is what he describes as a tender comedy, “3,000 Obstacles,” about a former elite athlete now suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Director of resonant features that are elliptical (“Pau and His Brother”) or pointedly meandering (“August Days”), Marc Recha is now developing a quirky comedy thriller about a blind man helping a friend to find some religious relics hidden by two Slovenian monks.

Ibon Cormenzana...

Spain’s Film Factory has acquired international rights on Jaime Rosales’ latest feature “Wild Sunflowers,” a co-production between the director’s own Fresdeval Films, A Contracorriente Films (“The Bookshop”), Oberon Films (Golden Bear winner “The Milk of Sorrow”), and Paris-based production-distribution company Luxbox Films (“Our Time”).

Starring Anna Castillo (“The Olive Tree”) and Oriol Pla (“Petra”), “Wild Sunflowers” follows 22-year-old Julia, a mother of two who falls in love with Oscar, with whom she initiates a powerful and tortuous relationship. However, Julia begins to have doubts about how appropriate a male role model Oscar is for her children before an incident sparks a headlong flight in search of a better future.

“We are pleased to work again with Jaime Rosales, one of the most intimate new filmmakers on the Spanish scene. We are convinced that ‘Wild Sunflowers’ will have a wide international appeal,” said Film Factory’s Vicente Canales in a statement.

The filmmaker is directing Anna Castillo and Oriol Pla in an optimistic, passionate and intense story that unfolds in various settings in Catalonia and the city of Melilla. The shoot for the new film by Jaime Rosales, Girasoles silvestres (lit. “Wild Sunflowers”), kicked off a few days ago in his home town of Barcelona. The movie stars Anna Castillo (whom we saw last year in Adú), who breathes life into a mother in search of true love, but who, above all else, battles to protect her children, and Oriol Pla, playing a boy who embarks on a relationship with her. The cast is topped off by Quim Àvila (glimpsed in the series The Red Band Society), Lluís Marquès (Isla bonita), Manolo Solo (The Fury of a Patient Man) and the much sought-after Carolina...

Libertad

A burgeoning screenwriter on such films as 10,000 Km (2014) and Jaime Rosales’ excellent Petra (2018), Clara Roquet workshopped this project at the 2019 January Screenwriters Lab. Filming took place this summer in Barcelona with players Nora Navas, Maria Rodríguez Soto and Vicky Peña onboard. Set on Catalonia’s gorgeous Costa Brava, the feature turns on the Vidal family which is spending a summer with their Alzheimer-affected grandmother Ángela. Overprotected and shy, 14 year-old Nora goes through a difficult time after her parents’ separation, but what looked like another tedious, sad summer for Nora, turns into a dangerous coming of age experience with the arrival of Libertad, the wild 15-year daughter of Ángela’s Colombian caretaker.…...

Luke Lorentzen’s feature documentary premiered at Sundance.

Luke Lorentzen’s feature documentary Midnight Family, about a struggling, family-run ambulance service in Mexico City, won the best Mexican film award, worth $25,000 as the Guadalajara International Film Festival came to a close. The film made its world premiere at Sundance in January.

Jaime Rosales’ Petra won the $12,500 award for best Iberoamerican film, while Ricardo Calil’s Brazilian feature Cinema Morocco won the best Iberomerican documentary prize, worth $7,500. The $5,000 audience award went to Acelo Ruiz’s Mexican feature Oblatos.

The festival’s new competitive international animation section awarded its main prize to...

Luke Lorentzen’s feature documentary premiered at Sundance.

Luke Lorentzen’s feature documentary Midnight Family, about a struggling, family-run ambulance service in Mexico City, won the best Mexican film award, worth $25,000 as the Guadalajara International Film Festival came to a close. The film made its world premiere at Sundance in January.

Jaime Rosales’ Petra won the $12,500 award for best Iberoamerican film, while Ricardo Calil’s Brazilian feature Cinema Morocco won the best Iberomerican documentary prize, worth $7,500. The $5,000 audience award went to Acelo Ruiz’s Mexican feature Oblatos.

The festival’s new competitive international animation section awarded its main prize to...

’Petra,’ ‘Midnight Family ‘ Win Big at Guadalajara

The 34th Guadalajara Int’l Film Festival (Ficg), boasting a new general director, Estrella Araiza, wrapped March 15 with a bevy of cash prizes spread out among several categories. Documentaries ruled, led by Premio Mezcal best film and best director winner “Midnight Family” by Luke Lorentzen, who also lensed the gripping account of a family of private ambulance operators in Mexico City. The festival’s Lgbtq section, Premio Maguey, gave its top prize to docu “One Taxi Ride” by Mak C.K., which in a non-lineal structure, chronicles the reactions of the family and community of Erick who ventures out of the closet after 10 years. Brazil’s Ricardo Calil took home the Ibero-American best documentary gong for “Cine Morocco,” hailed by jurors for its “creation of a risky narrative structure” to cover several topical issues in Brazil. Spanish Cannes regular Jaime Rosales snagged the...

The Guadalajara Int’l Film Festival (Ficg), Mexico’s largest film festival, is further expanding its lineup with the addition of a new competitive animation section in its 34th edition, running March 8 -15. Oscar-winning Guadalajara native Guillermo del Toro has put his heft behind the new section and will also announce the first winner of his Del Toro-Jenkins film scholarship at the fest. Ficg aptly opens Friday with an animated feature, Carlos Gutierrez’s “Day of the Dead” (“Día de Muertos”).

Actor Peter Fonda (“Easy Rider”) and British helmer Hugh Hudson (“Chariots of Fire”) are receiving Mayahuel International lifetime achievement awards at this edition. Festival will also screen “Easy Rider,” which Fonda co-wrote, co-produced and starred in, to mark its 50th year anniversary.

The festival kicks off with a new female general director at the helm, Estrella Araiza, who has been the festival’s head of industry & markets and has...

The $34,000 prize is aimed at promoting gender equality.

The Goteborg Film Festival will open with Miia Tervo’s Aurora from Finland, about a party animal Finnish woman in Lapland who meets an Iranian asylum seeker, on January 26.

The festival will close with the world premiere of Swedish directors’ Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein’s Swoon on February 4. The period romance is about two young lovers from families who own rival amusement parks.

The festival will screen 376 films from 83 countries.

Full lists of the films in the festival’s five competitions below.

The festival will host Eurimages’ Audentia Award competition for...

For 11 years running, our end-of-the-year tradition on the Notebook has been to poll our roster of contributors to create fantasy double features of new and old films. But what about the curators behind Mubi itself? This year we begin what we hope to be a new tradition: publishing the favorite films of the year as chosen by our programming team: Daniel Kasman in the U.S., Anaïs Lebrun and Chiara Marañón in the U.K. We each have two lists: our top new films that premiered in 2018, and then a selection of revivals screened in cinemas.PREMIERESDaniel Kasman1. Blue (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)2. The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland)3. Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski, USA)4. The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles, USA)5. The Waldheim Waltz (Ruth Beckermann, Austria)6. Unsane (Steven Soderbergh, USA)7. The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack, USA)8. The Red Shadow [director's cut]9. What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire?...

Cannes opener Everybody Knows scores eight nominations.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s political thriller The Realm led the Goya nominations from the Spanish Film Academy with 13 nods including for best film director, actor and original screenplay. It was closely followed by Javier Fesser’s hit comedy Champions with 11 nominations.

Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes opener Everybody Knows garnered eight nominations, including for best film, best actress for Penélope Cruz and best actor for Javier Bardem.

Fesser’s comedy is the most successful Spanish film by far at the local box office this year with a gross of $22m. Produced by Peliculas Pendleton, Movistar+ and Morena Films,...

The Realm Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival The Realm (El Reino) leads the charge at the Goya Awards as the nominations for Spain's equivalent of the Oscars were announced today.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen's political thriller, starring Antonio de la Torre, charts the downward spiral of a corrupt politco, and is up for 13 awards, including Best Film and Best Director. De la Torre receives a double nomination, with a Supporting Actor nod for his role as José Mujica in A Twelve-Year Night (La Noche De 12 Años), which charts the future Uruguayan president's years' long imprisonment under the dictatorship.

Javier Fesser's comedy Champions (Campeones) received 11 nominations, while Petra, by Jaime Rosales, Arantxa Echevarria's Carmen & Lola and Everybody Knows (Todos Lo Saben), by Asghar Farhadi each have eight nods. Scots scriptwriter Paul Laverty also receives a nomination for his screenplay adaptation of Carlos Acosta's ballet biopic Yuli.

The full...

San Sebastian — A prestige combination of Barcelona-based Lastor Media, Madrid’s producer-distributor Avalon (“Summer 1993”) and Snowglobe is teaming to develop “Libertad,” from writer-director Clara Roquet. The film also has development backing from the Catalonia Film Institute Icec, and from Movistar+ and Spanish public broadcaster Tve.

Project will be pitched at the 7th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum running Sept 23-26 at the San Sebastian Intl. Film Festival.

A coming-of-ager set on Catalonia’s gorgeous Costa Brava, the feature turns on the Vidal family which is spending a summer with their Alzheimer-affected grandmother Ángela. Overprotected and shy, 14 year-old Nora goes through a difficult time after her parents’ separation, but what looked like another tedious, sad summer for Nora, turns into a dangerous coming of age experience with the arrival of Libertad, the wild 15-year daughter of Ángela’s Colombian caretaker.

A story about class differences, the meaning of freedom and who grants it,...

Nadine Labaki’s ’Capharnaüm’ and Jacques Audiard’s ’The Sisters Brothers’ are also screening.

San Sebastian Film Festival’s Pearls section has announced 10 further titles including Damien Chazelle’s First Man and Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.

Pearls will close with Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut A Star Is Born, in which he stars with Lady Gaga.

Further new additions include several titles that premiered at Cannes earlier this year, including Nadine Labaki’s Capharnaüm, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman and Lukas Dhont’s Girl.

This marks the first time Lee will compete for an award at San Sebastian; he has previously...

Nadine Labaki’s ’Capharnaüm’ and Jacques Audiard’s ’The Sisters Brothers’ are also screening.

San Sebastian Film Festival’s Pearls section has announced 10 further titles including Damien Chazelle’s First Man and Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.

Pearls will close with Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut A Star Is Born, in which he stars with Lady Gaga.

Further new additions include several titles that premiered at Cannes earlier this year, including Nadine Labaki’s Capharnaüm, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman and Lukas Dhont’s Girl.

This marks the first time Lee will compete for an award at San Sebastian; he has previously...

The San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 21-29) has pulled together an impressive lineup for its competitive Audience Award section, including Damien Chazelle’s First Man, Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born.

Also among the ten new films announced today for the ‘Perlak’ selection are Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers, well-reviewed Cannes dramas Girl, by Lukas Dhont, and Capernaum, by Nadine Labaki, and Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.

Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s Birds Of Passage, Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai and Jia Zhangke’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender Ash Is Purest White also compete. Cooper’s directorial debut will close the section.

These ten films join those already announced in the strand: El Angel (Luis Ortega), Petra (Jaime Rosales), Summer (Kirill Serebrennikov), Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski), Another Day Of Life (Raúl de la Fuente and Damian Nenow), Asako I & II (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) and...

An early hit with festivalgoers who prefer to look outside the Official Selection, Jaime Rosales’s Directors’ Fortnight entry Petra proved the Spanish director to be a fluid and unpredictable talent. Arguably most famous—or perhaps infamous—for the almost entirely dialogue-free 2008 Basque terrorist drama Bullet in the Head, Rosales this time presents a very subtle mystery-thriller. Sharing DNA with the work of his compatriot Pedro Almodóvar—not least because it features a supporting turn by Almodóvar regular Marisa Paredes—Petra sees rising star Bárbara Lennie in the title role, as a woman who enrolls in a mentoring project with a famous artist, Jaume (a terrific debut by the non-professional Joan Botey).

Told using chapters that appear in non-chronological order, the film plays games with time before reaching a wholly unexpected climax. Rosales told Deadline that taking such an experimental approach to an otherwise conventional story was part of the project’s appeal.

The Notebook is covering Cannes with an on-going correspondence between critics Lawrence Garcia and Daniel Kasman.Dear Lawrence,I also was impressed by Jaime Rosales’s Petra—and especially, as you note, by actress Bárbara Lennie, whose reserved intelligence and natural poise suggest an eloquent capability of character: Whenever she is in a scene, whether in Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows or this one, one feels anything is possible in the drama, because she suggests an independence consciously held in check, thinking, feeling, waiting, and above all choosing when to speak, when to act.“When to act” could be the central question of Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book, which has premiered in the Cannes Film Festival's competition. Taking the form of an essay film collage akin to his opus Histoire(s) du cinéma, it is a salvo of anger and soul-searching inquiry from this director too-often venerated only for...

Speaking of soap operas: Jaime Rosales follows Farhadi’s plunge into the vernacular of Spanish culebrones with a complementary appropriation of melodrama in Petra, an achronological chronicle of one woman’s search for truth, history and her own identity. Starring Bárbara Lennie, the movie intrigues from the outset, playfully opening with a title card announcing Chapter II, along with a concise summary of the key narrative information this chapter will provide (“How Petra enters Jaume’s world”), a strategy that each subsequent chapter also employs. At his characteristically unhurried tempo, […]...

Speaking of soap operas: Jaime Rosales follows Farhadi’s plunge into the vernacular of Spanish culebrones with a complementary appropriation of melodrama in Petra, an achronological chronicle of one woman’s search for truth, history and her own identity. Starring Bárbara Lennie, the movie intrigues from the outset, playfully opening with a title card announcing Chapter II, along with a concise summary of the key narrative information this chapter will provide (“How Petra enters Jaume’s world”), a strategy that each subsequent chapter also employs. At his characteristically unhurried tempo, […]...

For the first time in festival history, Spanish productions — Asghar Farhadi’s “Everybody Knows,” Terry Gilliam’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” — will both open and close Cannes. In all, five Spanish titles made the festival cut, a recent record.

Such films speak of foreign auteurs’ fascination with Spain and its culture. They remain, however, “a minority” in Spain, says Juan Gordon at Morena Films, whose Alvaro Longoria produced “Everybody Knows.”

Spain’s industry “is driven by broadcasters investing in commercial films,” Gordon adds, acknowledging “a vitality in the industry” due to “the number of drama series getting made.”

“Two key factors are at work: Netflix, and the contraction of cinema-going arthouse audiences,” says Vicente Canales at Film Factory Ent., which represents Luis Ortega’s “El Angel,” in Un Certain Regard, and Jaime Rosales’ “Petra,” a Directors’ Fortnight player.

“Many Spanish films have sold to Netflix, some have functioned very well,...

Long-established art-house director Jaime Rosales set out to make his most accessible feature with “Petra,” a film about lies and self-discovery that indeed could well be his most popular work to date. It looks gorgeous, boasting sterling performances and an initially intriguing storyline which Rosales shuffles in an occasionally non-linear manner, not so far removed from such previous experimentations as “The Dream and the Silence.” There’s also Hélène Louvart’s elegantly fluid camerawork, gliding across and through spaces, always aware that worlds exist just outside the frame. But what begins as a psychologically and visually lush exploration of a woman’s quest to establish her paternity turns around the half-way mark into an overburdened plot set off by those constant panning shots which themselves become too rich for digestion. The disappointment is inescapable given the excitement of the first part, yet there’s enough to chew on, and indeed,...

Jaime Rosales has a reputation for tackling big themes with austerity and slowness in a way that ticks critics’ boxes but has left viewers alienated. With Petra, he maintains the trend toward accessibility he started with 2014's Beautiful Youth by retaining his signature formal techniques but front-loading his film with a new (for him) element: a satisfyingly complex plotline.

The result is an intense, cunningly structured and rewarding item about a woman's search for her father that should keep both the Rosales faithful happy and more general audiences (should it get the chance) intrigued. Petra has started selling to Euro territories,...

In a deal announced Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival, Vicente Canales’ Barcelona-based Film Factory has unveiled the sale of Jaime Rosales’ Directors’ Fortnight entry “Petra” to Condor Distribution in France and September Films for Benelux countries.

“Petra” is a pan-European co-production between Rosales’ Fresdeval Films and Wanda Vision – both based out of Madrid –Oberon Cinematográfica from Barcelona, Les Productions Balthazar in Paris and Copenhagen’s Snowglobe.

The film follows Petra, a woman who has always had the identity of her father hidden from her. When her mother passes away, Petra sets out on her own, and starts a residency under a famous artist named Jaume, a powerful and ruthless man she suspects may be her father. She also meets Jaume’s son Lucas, and his wife Marisa. The stories of the four then wind together and violent secrets unearth which push everyone to their limits, before a twist...

The lineup for the 2018 Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) at Cannes has been announced.

Opening Film:Birds of Passage (Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego)Closing Film:Troppa grazia (Gianni Zanasi)Feature Films Amin (Philippe Faucon)Climax (Gaspar Noe)Carmen y Lola (Arantxa Echevarria)Cómprame un revólver (Julio Hernández Cordón)Les Confins du monde (Guillaume Nicloux)El motoarrebatador (Agustín Toscano)En Liberté! (Pierre Salvadori)Joueurs (Marie Monge)Leave No Trace (Debra Granik)Los silencios (Beatriz Seigner)Ming wang xing shi ke de (Ming Zhang)Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)Mirai (Mamoru Hosoda)Le monde est à toi  (Romain Gavras)Petra (Jaime Rosales)Samouni Road (Stefano Savona)Teret (Ognjen Glavonic)Weldi (Mohamed Ben Attia)SHORTSBasses (Félix Imbert)Ce magnifique gâteau! (Emma De Swaef & Marc Roels)La lotta (Marco Bellocchio)Las cruces (Nicolas Boone)La Nuit des sacs plastiques (Gabriel Harel)O órfão (Carolina Markowicz)Our Song to War (Juanita Onzaga)Skip Day (Patrick Bresnan & Ivette Lucas)Le...

Nicolas Cage is heading to Cannes. The festival’s parallel sidebar Directors’ Fortnight has announced the 17 features that will screen this year, and the group includes world premieres from international favorites like Gaspar Noe’ and Ciro Guerra, plus acclaimed titles like “Mandy” and “Leave No Trace” that first wowed audiences at Sundance earlier this year.

2018 Directors’ Fortnight will open with the world premiere of “Birds of Passage,” from Colombian directors Guerra and Cristina Gallego. Guerra is best known as the director behind the Oscar-nominated “Embrace of the Serpent.” Another major world premiere will be Noe’s “Climax,” formerly known as “Psyché.” The director’s first film since “Love” is about a group of dancers in the 1990s who descend into madness after being drugged.

Directors’ Fortnight has become one of the most prestigious sidebars during the Cannes Film Festival. Last year, Fortnight premiere “The Florida Project” ended up being one...

Following the first lineup announcement for the 71st Cannes Film Festival, yesterday Critics’ Week arrived, and now today we get two more sidebar reveals. First up, there’s Directors’ Fortnight, which opens with Birds of Passage, from Embrace of the Serpent director Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego. Also among the lineup is Gaspar Noé’s drug-fueled (of course) drama Climax, Mamoru Hosoda’s new animation Mirai, Romain Gavras’ Le monde est à toi, as well as Sundance favorites: Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy and Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace.

Check out the lineup below, followed by the Acid lineup, featuring Jim Cummings’ SXSW winner Thunder Road.

Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Lineup

Opening Film:

Birds of Passage (Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego)

Closing Film:

Troppa grazia (Gianni Zanasi)

Feature Films

Amin (Philippe Faucon)

Climax (Gaspar Noé)

Carmen y Lola (Arantxa Echevarria)

Cómprame un revólver de (Julio Hernández Cordón)

Les Confins du monde (Guillaume Nicloux)

El motoarrebatador (Agustín Toscano)

En Liberté!

The 50th edition of Directors’ Fortnight, the section running parallel to the Cannes Film Festival, will open with Colombian directors Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s “Birds of Passage.”

The lavishly shot “Birds of Passage,” which marks Guerra’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated “Embrace of the Serpent,” takes place in Colombia in the 1970s, when the demand for marijuana hits Colombia, quickly turning farmers into seasoned businessmen. Unfolding in the Guajira desert, “Birds of Passage” follows a Wayuu indigenous family who take a leading role in this new drug trade and discover the perks of wealth and power but also encounter violence and tragedy.

Edouard Waintrop, who is serving his last turn as Directors’ Fortnight chief, said he was particularly happy to welcome back Guerra, who had presented “Embrace of the Serpent” in 2015. “‘Birds of Passage’ is a magnificent film and a powerful, epic mafia story filled with crime and treason,...

Debra Granik, Romain Gavras, Ciro Guerra and Gaspar Noe are among the directors whose films will be included in the 50th Directors’ Fortnight, an independent sidebar that will run concurrently with the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Granik will go to Cannes with “Leave No Trace,” her first narrative film since the Oscar-nominated “Winter’s Bone” in 2010, and a film that received strong reviews when it premiered at Sundance in January.

Gavras, best known for his videos for M.I.A., Kanye West and Jay-z and others, will be there with “Le monde est a toi,” while Guerra and his co-director Cristina Gallego, who made the Oscar-nominated “Embrace of the Serpent,” will bring “Birds of Passage” to Directors’ Fortnight.

Also Read: Cannes Will Welcome Back Lars von Trier, Says Festival Director

The Argentinian provocateur Noe will bring “Climax” to the festival.

Also in the selection: Panos Cosmatos’ horror film “Mandy,” which features what is reportedly another wild performance from Nicolas Cage.

Of the 20 feature films in the section, 15 are directed by men and four by women, with “Birds of Passage” a collaboration between male and female directors.

Also Read: Majority of Cannes Critics' Week Competition Films Were Directed by Women

Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des Realisateurs) was established in 1969, in the aftermath of a 1968 Cannes Film Festival that was canceled midway through in solidarity with the protests sweeping through France. It was set up to offer a more daring and experimental slate than the main festival, and over the years provided the first Cannes exposure for such directors as Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Michael Haneke and Spike Lee.

Directors’ Fortnight will open on May 9 and run through May 19.

The lineup:

“Pajaros de verano” (“Birds of Passage”), Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego (opening film)

“Amin,” Philippe Faucon

“Carmen Y Lola,” Arantxa Echevarria

“Climax,” Gaspar Noe

“Comprama un revolver” (“Buy Me a Gun”), Julio Hernandez Cordon

“Les Confins du Monde,” Guillaume Nicloux

“El motoarrebatador” (“The Snatch Thief”), Augustin Toscano

“En Liberte!,” Pierre Salvadori

“Joueurs” (“Treat Me Like Fire”), Marie Monge

“Leave No Trace,” Debra Granik

“Los Silencios,” Beatriz Seigner

“Ming wang xing shi ke” (“The Pluto Moment”), Ming Zhang

“Mandy,” Panos Cosmatos

“Mirai,” Mamoru Hosoda

“Le monde est a toi,” Romain Gavras

“Petra,” Jaime Rosales

“Samouni Road,” Stefano Savona

“Teret” (“The Load”), Ognjen Glavonic

“Weldi” (“Dear Son”), Mohamed Ben Attia

“Troppa Grazia,” Gianni Zanasi (closing film)

Also Read: Cannes Lineup Reaches From Spike Lee to Jean-Luc Godard

Short films:

“Basses,” Felix Imbert

“Ce Magnifique gateau!,” (“This Magnificent Cake!”), Emma De Swaef & Marc Roels

“La Chanson” (“The Song”), Tiphaine Raffier

“La Lotta,” Marco Belocchio

“Las Cruces,” Nicolas Boone

“La nuit des sacs plastiques” (“The Night of the Plastic Bags”), Gabriel Harel

“O orfao” (“The Orphan”), Carolina Markowicz

“Our Song to War,” Juanita Onzaga

“Skip Day,” Patrick Bresnan & Ivette Lucas

“Le Sujet” (“The Subject”), Patrick Bouchard

Read original story Debra Granik, Gaspar Noe Films Selected for Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight Lineup At TheWrap...

Update: Outgoing Directors’ Fortnight chief Edouard Waintrop revealed a 20-strong 50th anniversary lineup today that includes a return engagement for some, and a surprise inclusion for one of the most controversial filmmakers ever to hit the Croisette. Gaspar Noé will world premiere his Climax, appearing for the first time in the section after turns in Official Selection with such films as Love, Enter The Void and Irreversible. Climax has been kept close to the vest, with some conflicting information circulating (we will update when we know more).

The Fortnight will open with Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s Birds Of Passage. The 1970s-set film about the early days of the drug trade is a return to the section for Guerra whose 2015 Embrace Of The Serpent became Colombia’s first Foreign Language Oscar nominee.

Also notable on the roster are Guillaume Nicloux’s Les Confins Du Monde. His Valley Of Love...

Petition calls for unified EU vision on copyright and culture.

Cannes Palme d’Or contenders Fatih Akin, Michael Haneke, Michel Hazanavicius have joined 80 top European film-makers in a petition calling for a unified European Union vision on copyright and culture in the digital age.

“We believe that European filmmaking reflects Europe’s positive values. That it can inspire ambition and renewal in Europe’s cultural policies. Europe isn’t just jobs, territories, markets and consumers, European culture also supports multiple identities, democracy and freedom of expression,” the petition said.

Published to coincide with the European Film Forum in Cannes on Monday, it highlighted four key areas where the European Union needed to renew and reinforce its legislation to protect European culture.

Top of the filmmakers’ demands was the maintaining of the territoriality of copyright.

The European Parliament voted last week in favour of a European Commission proposal to de-territorialise digital rights, but the directors...

Petition calls for unified EU vision on copyright and culture.

Cannes Palme d’Or contenders Fatih Akin, Michael Haneke, Michel Hazanavicius have joined 80 top European film-makers in a petition calling for a unified European Union vision on copyright and culture in the digital age.

“We believe that European filmmaking reflects Europe’s positive values. That it can inspire ambition and renewal in Europe’s cultural policies. Europe isn’t just jobs, territories, markets and consumers, European culture also supports multiple identities, democracy and freedom of expression,” the petition said.

Published to coincide with the European Film Forum in Cannes on Monday, it highlighted four key areas where the European Union needed to renew and reinforce its legislation to protect European culture.

Top of the filmmakers’ demands was the maintaining of the territoriality of copyright.

The European Parliament voted last week in favour of a European Commission proposal to de-territorialise digital rights, but the directors...

Exclusive: Production company works with Danish debut director but brings in international expertise.

Danish production company Snowglobe, whose co-production credits include festival hits Ralitza Petrova’s Godless and Amat Escalante’s The Untamed, has greenlit its first Danish production.

Martin Skovbjerg’s Sticks & Stones (Brakland) will shoot in July and August on the southern Danish island of Langeland and Funen.

Theatrical distributors already on board are Denmark’s Reel Pictures, Iceland’s Bio Paradis and Norway´s Mer Film.

The story is about a teenage boy from Copenhagen who moves to a provincial area, where he is an outsider until he meets the local 15-year-old alpha male. The pair challenge each other in transgressive actions but when one boy’s family is blamed for a local scandal, their friendship is threatened. Jonas Bjerril and Vilmer Trier Brøgger will star.

The script is based on an original story by writer Christian Gamst Miller-Harris (Follow The Money, Oscar-winning short Helium...

“Imagine that we are sitting in an ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind a door. In an instant the room we are sitting in is completely altered; everything in it has taken on another look; the light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them.”-- Carl Th. DreyerOn the one hand, Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman is the everyday portrait of a woman living her life, watching wedding videos, going to the pool, meeting a lover, driving her young niece around, washing her hands, picking up flowers, and so on. On the other, it’s a horror-noir straddling two rival strands of the genres: the nice anti-hero with the dark secret buried in the past that threatens to be unearthed (Out of the Past; so many...

The International Film Festival of  Cartagena de Indias, Colombia's most important film event, announced the winners for its 55th edition. The top prize in the narrative competition went to Guatemala's "Ixcanul" by Jairo Bustamante, which after its triumph in Berlin has become a festival hit. However, the Brazilian feature "White Out, Black In"(Branco Sai, Preto Fica)  took home both the Special Jury Prize and the Fipresci Award, becoming the big winner at the festival. Notable Colombian winners include documentaries "Letter to a Shadow" and "Tea Time" (also honored in Miami) and narrative feature "The Silence of the River." Here is the full list of winners. 

Official Fiction Competition

Jury Members

Michael Fitzgerald- Malgorzata Szumowska - Cao Guimaraes

Best Film: "Ixcanul" by Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala) - Wins Cine Colombia Award that includes  $15.000 - Isa: Film Factory Entertainment

Special Jury Prize: "Branco Sai, Preto Fica" (White Out, Black In) by Adirley Queirós (Brazil) - PC: Cinco Da Norte Serviços AudiovisuaisBest Director: Hector Galvez for "Nn" (Peru, Colombia, Germany, France) - Isa: Habanero

The International Federation of Film Critics Award - Fipresci

Jury Members

Ivonete Pinto - Michael Pattison - Roger Alan Koza

Best Film: "Branco Sai, Preto Fica" (White Out, Black In) by Adirley Queirós (Brazil)Colombian Cinema Official Competition

Jury Members

Mirsad Purivatra - Gerwin Tamsma - Juan Carlos Arciniegas 

Best Film: "El Silencio del Rio" (The Silence of the River) by Carlos Tribiño (Colombia, Uruguay, France) - Wins Cinecolor Award that includes Usd $11.000 in deliveries and the Lci Seguros Award, which consists of a  50% discount on the insurance purchase for production up to Us$50,000. -Isa: Habanero Films

Special Jury Prize: "Carta a Una Sombra" (Letter to a Shadow) by Daniela Abad and Miguel Salazar(Colombia) - PC: Producciones la Esperanza

Best Director: Roberto Flores Prieto for "Ruido Rosa" (Pink Noise) - Wins Hangar Films Award that includes Usd $30.000 in film equipment for the production of his next film. - PC: Kymera Producciones

Additional Awards

Club Colombia Audience Award: "Carta a Una Sombra" (Letter to a Shadow) by Daniela Abad and Miguel Salazar (Colombia) - Wins Usd $15.000

Official Documentary Competition

Jury Members

Sergio Wolf - Ally Derks - Meredith Brody

Best Film: "La Once" (Tea Time) by Maite Alberdi (Chile, U.S.) - Wins Cinecolor Award that includes Usd $13.000 in digital post-production services - Isa: Cat & Docs

Special Jury Prize: "Tu y Yo" (You and Me) by Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada (Dominican Republic) - PC: Faula Films

Gems

Jury Members

Jorge Sanchez Sosa - Nicolas Morales Thomas - Ciro Guerra

Best Film: "Hermosa Juventud" (Beautiful Youth) by Jaime Rosales (Spain, France) - Wins Rcn Award for promotional purposes during its release in Colombia,  valued at Usd $50.000. - Isa: Ndm

Special Jury Prize: "El Hombre de las Multitudes" (The Man of the Crowd) by Marcelo Gomes and Cao Guimaraes (Brazil) Isa: FIGa Films

Special Mention: "Timbuktu" by Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania, France) - Isa: Le Pacte/U.S. Dist: Cohen Media Group

Official Shorts Competition

Jury Members

Joel del Rio - Roberto Fiesco - Andres Parra

Best Short Film: "Se Venden Conejos" (Rabbits for Sale) by Esteban Giraldo (Colombia) - Wins a professional Sony camera and  Usd $3.000 from Cinecolor in digital post-production services for the director's next project.

Special Mention: "Completo" by Iván Gaona (Colombia)

New Creators

Jury Members

Maite Alberdi - Franco Lolli - Jorge Forero

Best Short Film: "En Busca del Aire" (Searching for Air) by Mauricio Rojas Maldonado (Antioquia University) - Wins a professional  Sony camera; and GoPro HERO4 camera from Revista Shock.Special Mention: "La Ruta de Julita" (Julita's Route) by Omar Eduardo Ospina (Magdalena University) - Wins a scholarship to study film production at the Bucaramanga University.

Special Mention: "Estepario" by Ángela Duque (Sabana University) - Wins a scholarship to study sound recording and design at Bucaramanga University.

This year’s European Film Awards are officially out of the gates with a not so lean 50 film submissions to select from. The 27th edition collects titles that date back to last year’s Venice and Toronto Int. Film Festivals moving into Sundance-Rotterdam-Berlin and finally Cannes of ’14. Among the 31 European countries represented, we’ve got likes of the Palme d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan leading the huge pack of contenders including Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida. Here’s the complete list of 50!:

Alienation

ОТЧУЖДЕНИЕ (Otchujdenie)

Bulgaria

Directed By: Milko Lazarov

Written By: Milko Lazarov, Kitodar Todorov & Georgi Tenev

Produced By: Veselka Kiryakova

Amour Fou

Austria/Luxembourg/Germany

Written & Directed By: Jessica Hausner

Produced By: Martin Gschlacht, Antonin Svoboda, Bruno Wagner, Bady Minck, Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu & Philippe Bober

Beautiful Youth

Hermosa Juventud

Spain/France

Directed By: Jaime Rosales

Written By: Jaime Rosales & Enric Rufas

Produced By: Jaime Rosales,...

More than 30 European countries represented in the line-up.Scroll down for list in full

The 50 films recommended for a nomination for the European Film Awards (EFAs) have been unveiled.

The European Film Academy and Efa Productions revealed the titles at a press conference in Riga, Latvia where this year’s 27th EFAs will take place on Dec 13.

A total of 31 European countries are represented. In the 20 countries with the most Efa members, these members have voted one national film directly into the selection list.

To complete the list, a selection committee consisting of Efa Board Members and invited experts have included further films. Those experts include Screen International chief film critic and reviews editor Mark Adams (UK), Marit Kapla (Sweden), Stefan Kitanov (Bulgaria), Paz Lázaro (Spain), Christophe Leparc (France) and Elma Tataragic (Bosnia & Herzegovina).

In the coming weeks, more than 3,000 members of the European Film Academy will vote for the nominations in the categories European Film, Director...

Top brass at the festival, set to run from September 24-October 8, have announced the selections in Focus Mexico.

The films are as follows:

Focus Mexico

The Obscure Spring (Las Oscuras Primaveras)

Ernesto Contreras

Manuela Jankovic’s War (La Guerra De Manuela Jankovic)

Diana Cardozo

González

Christian Díaz Pardo

Asteroide

Marcelo Tobar

The Absent (Los Ausentes)

Nicolás Pereda

Cumbres

Gabriel Nuncio

We Are Mari Pepa (Somos Mari Pepa)

Samuel Kishi

The Well (Manto Acuífero)

Michael Rowe

Güeros

Alonso Ruizpalacios

Cantinflas

Sebastian del Amo

Los Angeles

Damian John Harper

The Amazing Catfish (Los Insólitos Peces Gato)

Claudia Sainte-Luce

The Empty Hours (Las Horas Muertas)

Aaron Fernandez.

Panorama section

Words With Gods (Palabras Con Dioses)

Guillermo Arriaga, Héctor Babenco, Warwick Thornton, Mira Nair, Hideo Nakata, Amos Gitai, Álex de la Iglesia, Emir Kusturica, Bahman Ghobadi

Short Plays

Daniel Gruener, Carlos Reygadas, Fernando Eimbcke, Felipe Gómez, Alejandro Valle, Karim Aïnouz, Marcelo Gomes, Pablo Fendrik, Pablo Stoll, [link...

Competitive strand will feature 14 films, including Jauja starring Viggo Mortensen.

A total of 14 titles have been selected to compete in Horizontes Latinos at the 62nd San Sebastian Festival (Sept 19-27).

The strand comprises productions from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia that have competed or screneed at international festivals but have yet to be seen in Spain.

The selected films compete for the Horizontes Award, decided by a jury and including a prize of €35,000 ($46,000), of which €10,000 ($13,000) goes to the director of the winning film, and the remaining €25,000 ($33,000) to its distributor in Spain.

Casa Grande

Fellipe Barbosa (Brazil - USA)

Set within Rio’s social elite, a teenage boy struggles to escape his overprotective parents as his family spirals into bankruptcy. This second movie by Brazil’s Fellipe Barbosa was presented in the Official Selection at the Rotterdam Festival.

Ciencias naturales (Natural Sciences)

Matías Lucchesi (Argentina - France)

Presented in the Generation section of the Berlin Festival...

With past winners being The Broken Circle Breakdown and Lorna’s Silence and past finalists being 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Attenberg and The Selfish Giant, the annual Lux prize (an annual spotlight on films that go to the heart of the European public debate) acts as a barometer for the latest in solid European fare. Announced yesterday at the Karlovy Vary Film Fest, this year’s batch of noms include several Cannes winners in Alice Rohrwacher’s sophomore, Main Comp selected, Grand Prix winning family drama, Kornél Mundruczó’s Un Certain Regard winning film with a little bit, and Ruben Östlund darkly comical slope-side gem. If I were a betting man, my two euros is on Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida. Here are the ten, with attached trailers:

Beautiful Youth (Hermosa Juventud) – (Jaime Rosales) – Spain, France

Class Enemy (Razredni Sovraznik) – (Rok Biček) – Slovenia

Force Majeure (Turist) – (Ruben Östlund) – Sweden, Denmark, France,...

The cast from Lux prize contender Girlhood Every year in Karlovy Vary the European Parliament announces the contenders for the Lux prize which is designed to celebrate “the richness, diversity and excellence of European cinema.”

This year’s crop includes no less than five features that deal with the challenges faced by young people in Europe. The films are Celine Sciamma’s Girlhood (Bande de filles) from France; The Wonders (Le Meraviglie) by Alice Rohrwacher from Italy; Class Enemy (Razredni Sovraznik) by Rok Bicek from Slovenia; Xenia by Panos H Koutras from Greece, and Jaime Rosales’ Beautiful Youth (Hermosa Juventud) from Spain.

Two other titles in the selection had younger people in prominent roles: Kornel Mundruczo’s White God (Hungary, Germany, Sweden) and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida (Poland, Denmark). The rest of the selection comprises Dietrich Brueggemann’s Stations Of The Cross (Germany), Sudabeh Mortezai’s Macondo (Austria) and Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure (Sweden,...