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Movies about movies tend to be as sentimental as Cinema Paradiso, the all-time tearjerker in the genre, or as caustic as the recent Babylon. But Lone Scherfig finds a fine balance between love of movies and the harsh wider world in The Movie Teller, a beautifully made coming-of-age film about Maria Margarita, who acts out the Hollywood movies she has seen at the local cinema in her small mining town. Set in the Chilean desert in the late 1960s and early ’70s, the drama benefits greatly from the sure hand and clear eye Scherfig has brought to her best films, other period pieces including An Education (2009) and Their Finest (2016). All that can’t quite make up for the rocky screenplay, though.

The story is adapted from the Chilean writer Hernan Rivera Letelier’s 2009 novel. The first version of the screenplay was tackled years ago by the Brazilian director Walter Salles,...

“Captain America: Civil War” star Daniel Brühl has boarded Lone Scherfig’s upcoming feature “The Movie Teller,” Variety can reveal.

The BAFTA-nominated actor, who recently reprised his Marvel role in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and has appeared in features including “Rush” and “Inglourious Basterds,” will star alongside Bérénice Bejo (“The Artist”) and Antonio de la Torre (“Marshland”) in the film.

Embankment are executive producing the film and have launched worlwide sales, co-repping Latin American rights with Latido Films. A Contracorriente Films’ Adolfo Blanco (“The Bookshop”), Selenium Films’ Vincent Juillerat and Andres Mardones of Al Tiro Films are producing.

Directed by BAFTA nominee Scherfig (“An Education”), “The Movie Teller” sees Brühl star as Nansen, a European outsider who, via his restraint and diplomacy, earns the respect of the families he encounters at a Chilean mine before embarking on a relationship with a local woman, María Magnolia (played by Bejo).

In particular,...

Madrid — Freddie Highmore, star of ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” the top exported U.S. scripted series last year, has been joined on bank heist thriller “Way Down” by Liam Cunningham, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey and Sam Riley.

Cunningham plays Sir Davos Seaworth in “Game of Thrones”; Astrid Bergès-Frisbey embodied mermaid Syrena in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.”; Riley portrayed Ian Curtis in “Control,” and Diaval in Disney‘s “Maleficent,” alongside Angelina Jolie.

Directed by Jaume Balagueró, the ambitious English-language heist thriller partners two of Europe’s biggest media corporations, Spain’s Mediaset España and France’s TF1 Group. Ghislain Barrois and Álvaro Augustín, at Telecinco Cinema, Mediaset España’s film arm, are producing with El Tesoro de Drake Aie, Ciudadano Ciskul (Francisco Sánchez) and Think Studio (Eneko Lizarraga), in collaboration with Mediaset España and TF1 Group.

Highmore himself will take a producer credit. “Way Down” will be sold at...

*full disclosure: an online screener of this film was provided by the marketing dept. of Samuel Goldwyn. Director: Xavier Gens. Writers: Jesús Olmo, Eron Sheean and Albert Sánchez Piñol. Cast: Ray Stevenson, David Oakes and Aura Garrido. French filmmaker Xavier Gens must have played the mobile game Shoggoth Rising when he was conceiving Cold Skin. There are moments in his cinematic treatment which looks all too familiar. While the story is different, the fact both owe a huge debt to H.P. Lovecraft says it all. When both take place at a lonely isolated lighthouse and the conflict lies between Man vs. Nature, just who will first succumb to the fury (madness) is easily evident. The cinematography by Daniel Aranyó is gorgeous to behold. The intro feels like it's straight out of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel. However, instead of finding two people at odds with each other, they are ferrying...

Amenábar returns to the genre stomping grounds of "Abre Los Ojos" (remade into "Vanilla Sky") and "The Others" in this thriller about a detective (Hawke) whose investigation of a young girl's (Watson) gravely serious accusations against her father (David Dencik) unearths a powerfully scary conspiracy. It's set in Minnesota, 1990. Hawke's Detective Bruce Kenner is aided by a psychologist (David Thewlis) who performs regression therapy on the father, also uncovering more unhappy memories. On board the creative team are "Pacific Rim" production designer Carol Spier, "The Last Days" Dp Daniel Aranyo and VFX supervisor Felix Berges ("The Impossible"). "Regression" doesn't hit Us theaters until August 28th, 2015 via TWC-Dimension.

So, it's Spanish-dubbed, but the international teaser trailer for "Regression" still makes this film look pretty damn freaky. Amenábar returns to the genre stomping grounds of "Abre Los Ojos" (remade into "Vanilla Sky") and "The Others" in this thriller about a detective (Hawke) whose investigation of a young girl's (Watson) gravely serious accusations against her father (David Dencik) unearths a powerfully scary conspiracy. Hawke's Detective Bruce Kenner is aided by a psychologist (David Thewlis) who performs regression therapy on the father, also uncovering more unhappy memories. On board the creative team are "Pacific Rim" production designer Carol Spier, "The Last Days" Dp Daniel Aranyo and VFX supervisor Felix Berges ("The Impossible"). "Regression" doesn't hit Us theaters until August 28th, 2015 via TWC-Dimension. But then again, we've waited this long.

Alejandra Amenabar has wrapped principal photography on his new fear film Regression, starring Ethan Hawke and Emma Watson, and we have the first still and latest details waiting for you right here. Dig it!

From the Press Release

Academy award winner Alejandro Amenábar (The Sea Inside, The Others) has wrapped principal photography on Regression. The film, based on Amenábar's original screenplay is produced by Mod Entertainment, Mod Producciones, Himenóptero, First Generation Films and Telefónica Studios in association with FilmNation Entertainment, with the participation of Telefilm Canada and in collaboration with Mediaset España. TWC-Dimension will distribute the film in the United States.

Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke (Before Midnight, Training Day) and Emma Watson (Noah, Harry Potter) star in the film. Regression sees the return of Amenábar to genre, where he previously had great success with Dimension Films' The Others, which grossed over $200 million worldwide.

Regression also stars David Thewlis (The Fifth Estate,...

It has been a long decade since Chilean director Alejandro Amenabar's last theatrical feature, Foreign Language Oscar winner "The Sea Inside." Now, he will finally revisit the bleak, genre-driven territory that first defined his career -- from 1997's "Abre Los Ojos" to 2001's ravishingly beautiful ghost story "The Others" -- with his next film, "Regression." Starring Ethan Hawke and Emma Watson, and also written by Amenabar, "Regression" turns on a detective (Hawke) whose investigation of a young girl's (Emma Watson) gravely serious accusations against her father (David Dencik) unearths a powerfully scary conspiracy. Hawke's Detective Bruce Kenner is aided by a psychologist (David Thewlis) who performs regression therapy on the father, also uncovering more unhappy memories. On board the creative team of the film, which wrapped principal photography in Toronto this week, are "Pacific Rim" production designer Carol Spier, "The Last Days" Dp Daniel Aranyo and VFX supervisor Felix Berges.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

The anthology film, in its successes, is so often a serendipitous art; after all, how much control can any one contributor have over the project as a whole? This fact is painfully reminded to us in Cuban travelogue 7 Days in Havana, a visually dazzling but thematically sparse tableau.

Quite possibly a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, even if those cooks are by-and-large first-rate film directors, 7 Days of Havana aims disappointingly low with its ambition, telling tales that either feel derived from soap opera, or fail to adequately convey the aspect of Cuban culture that they so desperately want to.

With each story comprising one day of the titular week, Benicio Del Toro’s “El Yuma” is first up to bat, starring Josh Hutcherson as a film student enjoying the city’s sights before he begins class. Following that, Pablo Trapero (Carancho) depicts despondent...