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Dir: Gaston Duprat, Mariano Cohn. Starring: Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Martinez, Jose Luis Gomez, Irene Escolar, Manolo Solo. 15, 114 minutes.

Is the film industry’s obsession with poking fun at its own excesses just another form of vanity? After the hundredth comedy about conceited artists and their many gluttonies (see: Judd Apatow’s painfully unfunny The Bubble), it all starts to feel a little like the dirtbag boyfriend who loves to apologise for how “messed up” he is, but never makes the slightest attempt to fix his behaviour. Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn’s Official Competition may be yet another satire on filmmaking, but it’s the rare iteration that’s nuanced enough to understand that self-awareness does not equal absolution.

The Argentinian directors have, admittedly, corralled exactly the sort of headline-grabbing cast that normally populates these indulgent meta-comedies. Official Competition marks the first time Pedro Almodovar’s two most recognisable collaborators,...

Cruz’s eccentric director employs unorthodox techniques to manage lead actors – and polar opposites – Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez

It’s clever casting – and very entertaining – to put screen goddess Penélope Cruz in the role of a superstar film director. Cruz is most famous for her working relationship with Pedro Almodóvar; often she’s described as his muse – demeaningly, I think. Well, with this playful satire of the movie industry, Argentinian film-making duo Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat give her all the power in the role of a borderline tyrannical auteur with a bonkers streak (think Marina Abramović or maybe even Björk). Wearing a massive curly wig – made from saucepan scourers, it looks like – Cruz lets rip with a deliciously fun performance.

She plays eccentric director Lola Cuevas, who is starting rehearsals for her new film: an adaptation of a prize-winning novel about the rivalry between two brothers. Lola’s...

Antonio Banderas as “Félix Rivero” and Penelope Cruz as “Lola Cuevas” in Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s Official Competition. Courtesy of Manolo Pavon. An IFC Films release.

In the satiric comedy Official Competition, Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas star as an auteur director and international action star, both with egos the size of Montana, who are hired by an aging wealthy businessman intent on financing a big, award-winning hit movie as a vanity project. The humor is pointed and wits are sharp, as wealth, egos, art and particularly movie-making come under the comic guns of Argentinian co-directors Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohen in this hilarious Spanish-language satire.

As he turns 80, millionaire businessman Humberto Suarez (Jose Luis Gomez) decides he needs a monumentally big project to leave a lasting legacy. But what should be choose? A bridge designed by a famous architect bearing his name? A charitable foundation? No, a...

This review of “Official Competition was published on Sept. 4, 2021 after the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

To trot out the old adage, “scratch a cynic, find an idealist” in reference to “Official Competition,” a modest showbiz sendup that premiered, fittingly enough, in official competition at 2021’s Venice film festival might be putting it a bit too harshly. Frankly, it wouldn’t take more than the morning breeze or the soft touch of an infant to wipe away the thin layer of satire that (barely) covers a deeper, almost evangelical belief in the power of movie stars.

In some ways you could call it a throwback in the sense that it runs totally counter to the high-concept, IP-driven model of recent Hollywood output. “Official Competition” co-directors Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn would rather offer viewers a no-concept, light and breezy big-screen hangout, betting that audiences will turn out...

Should someone ever construct a Film Hair Hall of Fame, or a museum dedicated to the greatest cinematic coifs to ever grace screens, we’d like to submit for inclusion Penélope Cruz’s ‘do from Official Competition. An untamable mane of red curls cascading out from her head and spilling over her shoulders, it is almost its own character; the closest way to describe it would be to imagine Medusa as played by Lucille Ball. It’s an alpha-follicular power move, a feral flex of frizz, and one that immediately...

Suggesting there’s still traction in international markets, Latido has announced a raft of major territory sales on top Cannes titles, led by ”The Heist of the Century,” “Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles” and “Hotel Coppelia.”

Derails of the sales, closed in the long-run up to Cannes or in Cannes early days if trading, comes as Latido’s new Cannes title and A Demain Platform player “Virus 32,” a zombie breakout horror-thriller, is sparking large interest from international distributors e-attending Cannes after the spectacular success if Latido-sold “The Platform,” which Netflix stepped in promptly t acquire after its world-premiere at Toronto last year.

An Argentine blockbuster, notching up in January the fifth best opening weekend in Argentine history, Ariel Winograd’s true facts based bank robbery “The Heist of the Century,” starring Guillermo Francella, has closed Japan (Ak Company), Russia/Cis (Red Castle), the U.K. (Sky UK), South...

Buenos Aires — Bringing onto the market what looks like by far the biggest new movie at Ventana Sur, Latido Films has acquired international sales rights to Agustí Villaronga’s “Born a King,” starring Ed Skrein, fresh off his star-turn in “Midway.”

Latido Films’ director Antonio Saura and Juan Torres, intl. sales head, will introduce “Born a King” – also starring Hermione Cornfield (“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation”) and marking a return to production after an eight-year hiatus of Andrés Vicente Gómez – to select buyers at Ventana Sur, the Cannes-Incaa Latin American market which kicks off Monday in Buenos Aires.

A U.K.-Spanish co-production between London’s Celtic Films, and Spain’s Arena Audiovisual that yokes the craft of both countries’ top tech pool, “Born a King” is budgeted at a declared €19 million ($21 million).

That shows in the heavy VFX work recreating a bustling yet gray 1919 London and a spectacular battle scene at the film’s get-go,...

San Sebastian — Everybody agrees: World markets for arthouse films have contracted, first in prices paid, now in number of territories sold.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no arthouse market at all. A case in point: Latido Films. Headed by Antonio Saura, the Madrid-based sales house heads into this year’s San Sebastian Festival reporting 23 higher profile deals across seven titles struck from Cannes through Venice, Toronto and multiple festivals in between.

Only one of these titles, only Javier Fesser’s “Champions,” can be said to be anywhere near selling out. But, with foreign-language movies so dependent these days on scoring berths at big fests, and sales cycles lengthening given ever-more cautious buyers, none of the films are anywhere near the end of their sales cycle. Among deals:

*Caca Diegues’s Cannes Special Screening “The Great Mystical Circus,” a five-generation circus saga, has closed three major markets: the U.