News

Spain’s rich TV show lineup at the Berlin Film Festival also features a screening of Atresmedia’s “Red Flags,” charting the often pained sexual and emotional awakening of four Gen Z teens.

Selected titles at Berlin:

Berlinale Market Selects

“Honor,” (Atresmedia TV, Portocabo)

The Spanish remake of Israeli TV series “Kvodo,” with the often superb Dario Grandinetti (“Talk to Her”) in the Bryan Cranston role of famed Showtime re-do “Your Honor,” as a principled judge attempting to save his son after, in an accidental hit-and-run, he kills the son of a lethal drug kingpin. Portocabo produces with Atresmedia TV in an intense and thought-provoking series,” says Atresmedia’s José Antonio Salso.

“Internal Affairs,” (“Asuntos Internos,” Rtve-Mediacrest)

Following a first women police inspector in Spain, a 1979-set series distinguished by strong thriller propulsion, premium production values and a novel female take on cop thrillers. It also offers a moving vision...

Dismantling an Elephant, a new Spanish film offers a striking and intimate look at the consequences of addiction on families. Aitor Echeverría’s debut film features acclaimed actors Emma Suárez and Natalia de Molina as a mother and daughter caught in the grip of addiction.

Blanca (Suárez) and Marga (de Molina) are major characters in the story, and their lives are inextricably linked and affected by addiction. The film goes beyond the individual struggle to show how the sickness spreads across families, hurting everyone. Suárez and de Molina’s performances convey an emotive and nuanced picture of this shared pain.

In preparation for their roles, both women immersed themselves in the world of addiction. They attended family therapy sessions and toured rehabilitation facilities, learning from firsthand accounts. “The people we met were so generous in sharing their stories and vulnerabilities,” Suárez told me.

De Molina addressed the interconnectedness of addiction throughout the film.

In “Dismantling an Elephant,” Spanish director Aitor Echeverría delivers an exploration of addiction’s ripple effects within a family, framed through an intimate mother-daughter dynamic. The film stars Emma Suárez, a triple Goya winner known for Pedro Almodóvar’s “Julieta,” and Natalia de Molina, who has claimed two Goyas, including one for “Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed.” Co-stars include Darío Grandinetti (“Talk to Her”) and Alba Guilera.

For both of the film’s lead actors, Echeverría’s vision and the script were immediate draws. “It had such an original cinematic take on addiction, the story was told in a subtle way and the visual language was very elegant,” Suárez tells Variety. “And then, meeting Aitor, the director. He transmitted a lot of confidence and put a lot of faith in our work.”

De Molina echoes her co-star’s sentiment, explaining that her journey with the film began years ago.

Some of the highest-profile Spanish films of 2024 – from Málaga Festival winner and now Spain’s Oscar entry “Saturn Return” to San Sebastián laureates “I Am Nevenka” and “Glimmers” – feature in Mass, a Spanish film showcase which will unspool in Buenos Aires over Nov. 28-30 and Montevideo during Dec. 2-4, running parallel with the Uruguayan capital’s Ventana Sur market.

The film season represents the latest collaboration between Spain’s San Sebastián and Málaga Festival, here in partnership of Spain’s Icaa film agency and Argentina’s Orca Films, as Spain’s seeks to capitalize on its predominant presence on global streamers among E.U. film powers to consolidate production and co-financing relations in Uruguay, a building film-tv hub, and with regions of Argentina.

During their stay in Argentina, the San Sebastian and Malaga Festivals will meet representatives of the Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos and Santiago del Estero provinces to work...

From the day that Christopher Columbus set sail from Huelva to beach up in the Caribbean, the Spanish city has always had strong ties to Latin America.

With Spain still laboring under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, when a group of young film buffs at Huelva’s Film Club aimed to galvanize the city’s culture, “It was logical that we looked to the richness and plenitude of culture that came from abroad,” recalls José Luis Ruíz Díaz, Huelva’s first director. “It was also logical that we had a large interest in Latin America, adds Vicente Quiroga, its longtime head of press. Relaxing, censorship in Spain also allowed access to a suddenly broader sweep of foreign titles.

Huelva’s first 50 editions have proved a faithful reflection of the evolution of cinema in Latin America, Portugal and Spain. Some milestones:

1975: Ruíz Díaz launches Huelva’s first Ibero-American Film Week with Argentina’s “La Raulito.

Julie Delpy’s Meet The Barbarians will open the 21st edition of the Seville European Film Festival on November 8. The Spanish festival turns the spotlight on European films during this year’s awards season.

Meet The Barbarians is a satire about the arrival of a group of refugees in a village in Brittany.

The official selection includes 19 titles in competition for its top award: the Golden Giraldillo, named after the statue that crowns Sevilla’s Cathedral, La Giralda.

The prize comes with €40,000 for the Spanish distributor of the winning film or €20,000 for the company that submitted the film to the...

Un íntimo y revelador retrato familiar marcado por el tabú y la relación entre una madre y su hija. © Filmax

Ya se ha publicado el primer tráiler y póster de la ópera prima de Aitor Echeverría, Desmontando un elefante, que competirá en la Sección Oficial del 21 Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla.

Desmontando un elefante sigue a Marga (Emma Suárez), una arquitecta de éxito que regresa a casa tras pasar dos meses en un centro de rehabilitación por un problema de adicción con el que su familia ha convivido en silencio durante años. Tras su llegada, Marga intentará rehacer su vida anterior mientras su hija menor, Blanca (Natalia de Molina), verá cómo la atención que presta a su madre afecta tanto a sus relaciones como a su carrera como bailarina profesional. Un año después, el elefante sigue siendo tan enorme como siempre. Aunque al menos, ahora, todo el mundo puede verlo.

Spanish production-sales-distribution house Filmax has boarded “Dismantling an Elephant,” the latest film from Barcelona-based Arcadia Motion Pictures, producer of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s foreign-language Cesar winner “The Beasts” and Academy Award-nominated animated feature “Robot Dreams.”

Sold outside Spain by Filmax, “Dismantling an Elephant” toplines Emma Suárez, the triple Goya-winning star of Pedro Almodovar’s “Julieta,” and Natalia de Molina, who has won two Goyas, one for David Trueba’s “Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed,”which swept the Spanish Academy 2014 Goya Awards

At this week’s American Film Market, Filmax will show buyers a trailer of the film, which is currently finalising post-production.

“Dismantling an Elephant” looks to offer Suárez the typically gutsy role in which she excels, playing a mother trapped by both a close bond to her daughter, which is also a source of conflict, and a day-to-day life whose elephant in the room is her own addiction, which nobody mentions,...

Exclusive: Walking Dead maker Skybound Entertainment has struck what it is calling a “first-of-its-kind” deal with Prime Video over a dystopian thriller series from Scandinavia.

Amazon has taken rights in the Nordics for Vaka but Skybound retains worldwide distribution and controls the show’s “global commissioning structure.” This means Skybound can strike deals with buyers and sellers in different territories while the door remains open for Prime Video to acquire Vaka for other regions further down the line.

Set in Stockholm and starring Aliette Opheim and Jonas Karlsson, Vaka follows the spread of a deadly insomnia epidemic. A disgraced minister must balance addressing the crisis and caring for his son, while an ambulance nurse goes to great lengths to save her lover.

The show is co-produced by Amazon MGM Studios, Unlimited Stories and Sagafilm, the latter of which was acquired by Skybound and 5th Planet Games last year. The Icelandic...

Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez’s,Saturn Return was the big winner at the Malaga Film Festival on March 9, taking home the awards for Golden Biznaga for best Spanish film, best director and best editing.

Other top prizes went to Celia Rico’s Little Loves, Álex Monoya’s La Casa, Pau Durá’s Birds Flying East (Pájaros) and Mexican drama Radical, by Christopher Zalla.

Saturn Return, a drama inspired by iconic indie rock band Los Planetas, is set in the late 1990s in Granada. It is produced by La Terraza Films, Áralan Films, Ikiru Films, Bteam Prods, Sideral Cinema and Los Ilusos Films.

Filmax has acquired international rights to Spanish thriller “Nina,” the new feature written and directed by Andrea Jaurrieta (“Ana by Day”) that bows at this week’s Málaga Film Festival as one of its higher profile titles in main competition.

Loosely based on the play of the same name by José Ramón Fernández, which borrows elements of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” “Nina” tells the story of a woman, an actress, who returns to her home town on Spain’s rugged northern coast seeking to take revenge on a celebrated writer. As she encounters past acquaintances, including a once close childhood friend, and faces dark memories, she begins to question whether vengeance is the only way forward.

“Nina” stars Goya-winning actress Patricia López Arnaiz (“Ane is Missing”) as the titular character and San Sebastián Silver Shell winner Darío Grandinetti, famed for his performance in Pedro Almodovar’s “Talk to Her,...

Screen shines a light on 30 European titles that look set to grab the attention of festival directors in 2023, including new features by Tom Tykwer, Paz Vega, Paolo Sorrentino, Cecilia Verheyden and Baltasar Kormakur.

For our separate list of French festival hopefuls for 2024, click here.

Ariel (Sp-Por)

Dir. Lois Patiño

Patiño won the Encounters special jury prize at Berlin last year for Samsara and picked up the emerging director prize at Locarno in 2013 with Coast Of Death. His latest is a free adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, shot in Galicia and The Azores islands. Ariel stars Goya winner Irene Escolar...

A bevy of established auteurs – Joachim Lafosse, Cristi Puiu, Robin Campillo and Martín Rejtman – rub shoulders with the fast-rising figures of Maria Alche and Benjamín Naishtat and new U.S. discovery Raven Jackson among a first batch of directors contending in main competition at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

Also in the mix, announced Friday, is U.S. writer-director Noah Pritzker (“Quitters”) whose “Ex-Husbands” headlines “After Hours” co-stars Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette.

Always open to a broader gamut of movies than many other “A” festivals, the first features confirmed for San Sebastian on Friday include four comedies with a change of register to lighter comedy for both Naishtat and Alche, who triumphed at 2018’s San Sebastián with “Rojo” and “A Family Submerged,” best director and Horizontes winners respectively.

The biggest movie event in the Spanish-speaking world – which means ever more as Spanish-language titles hit big viewerships on streaming...

A Boyfriend For My Wife, Do Not Enter entice buyers.

Guido Rud’s Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks has reported a raft of business on its Cannes slate led by a major deal with the TelevisaUnivision’s ViX platform on rom-com A Boyfriend For My Wife (Un Novio Para Mi Mujer).

The streamer is building its nascent pipeline after launching in 2022 and acquired US and Spanish-speaking Latin American rights to Laura Mana’s completed Spanish remake of the Argentinian smash starring Belen Cuesta, Hugo Silva and Diego Martin. AMC has acquired the film for Eastern Europe, Kinologistica for Cis, and Anuvu for airlines.

Laetitia Casta will soon appear on the big screen as the former wife of an abusive southern Italian man whom she is accused of murdering in the thriller “A Dark Story,” directed by Italy’s Leonardo D’Agostini.

In “Dark Story” the French star, whose recent credits include “The Crusade” directed by her husband Louis Garrel, plays Carla (first look image above), the ex-wife of Vito Semeraro, a banker who beat her when they were together and is the father of her three children. She is accused of murdering him a few years after they split up.

Italian sales company True Colours is launching sales in Cannes on this psychological noir that marks the sophomore feature by D’Agostini whose 2019 debut drama “The Champion” – a soccer dramedy about a young male soccer star and a shy academic who becomes his tutor – sold widely via the same outfit. Andrea Carpenzano stars in “Dark Story” alongside Casta.

Running March 10-19, and now hosting the Spanish Screenings, the Malaga Film Festival is now firmly established as Spain’s biggest movie event in the early part of the year. Strategically positioned fairly sharp on the heels of the Berlinale, the Spanish event offers top Spanish titles at the German festival the chance to consolidate their reputations while often producing new discoveries, especially from first-time directors.

Many titles, from a Spanish film industry whose younger directors are highly social conscience and favor art-house, are issue driven.

“There’s a search for identity, whether a young trans girl’s exploration of gender identity or young leads to understand the world they live in, or the search for love and a sense pf strangeness, of being a stranger to oneself,” Juan Antonio Vigar, Málaga Film Festival director said of this year’s main Competition. Following, a brief breakdown of its titles.

“20,000 Species of Bees,...

The festival opens on March 10 and will include super-sized industry progrramme Mafiz.

The 26th edition of the Malaga Film Festival kicks off today, giving the Spanish and international industry the chance to discover the latest films and talent emerging from the local and Latin America landscapes.

Twenty films will screen in the main competition. They include new films from returning Malaga filmmaker Elena Trapé, who won the best film and best director award in 2018 for The Distances. She’s in competition with a drama called The Enchanced, starring Laia Costa, about a young mother who has recently separated and is missing her young daughter.

David Chocarro is an Argentine actor and model who has been in the entertainment industry for over a decade. He began his career on television, appearing in a number of telenovelas, such as Rebelde Way, Floricienta and Los Únicos. He has also made numerous appearances on stage, starring in productions such as La Celestina and The Lion King.

David’s film career began with a role in the 2008 drama El Camino de San Diego. Since then he has appeared in films such as Una Noche para Sobrevivir and Plan B, both of which were nominated for awards at the Cannes Film Festival. He also starred alongside Dario Grandinetti in the 2018 comedy El Profesor y el Loco, for which he received critical acclaim.

In addition to acting, David is an avid philanthropist having taken part in numerous charity events over the years. He also won the 2018 Latin American Music Award for Best Male Solo Artist,...

Exclusive: Argentinian crime thriller A Singular Crime (Un Crimen Argentino), directed by Lucas Combina, has landed a series of international distribution deals on the third day of the EFM.

The pic was given a local theatrical release by Warner Bros. last year and was brought to the market by FilmSharks. We understand that Koba films have taken all rights for France and French-speaking Europe, IV productions for Russia/Cis, AMC took all digital TV/SVOD rights for East Europe, and Spafax for inflight-Airline rights.

Deals for Korea, Japan, Australia, and Germany are said to be in discussion, with a US deal in motion.

Based on the best-selling novel by Reynaldo Sietecase, published by Penguin Random House, the film follows two jurists who try to solve the case of a wealthy businessman’s disappearance while facing the interference of a police officer.

The film stars Nicolas Francella, Darío Grandinetti, Matias Mayer (Iosi: El Espía Arrepentido), and Luis Luque.

Producers include Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pol Bossi-Cabe Bossi, Tomás Yankelevich, Peter Bevan, and Mariana Sanjurjo. Writers are Jorge Bechara, Matías Bertilotti, and Sebastián Pivotto.

The 48th edition of the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival will honor Spanish actress Nathalie Poza with a City of Huelva Award, an acknowledgment whose previous recipients included filmmaker Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”) and actors Dario Grandinetti, Eduard Fernández and Edward James Olmos.

Running Nov. 11-18, Huelva 2022 will also homage young thesp Greta Fernández, a best actress winner at San Sebastian for Belén Funes’ “A Thief’s Daughter,” and Andalusian writer-director Juan Miguel del Castillo (“Food and Shelter”) with two Light Awards.

Meanwhile, Seville-born director Santi Amodeo will receive a Rtva Award for best Andalusian filmmaker.

Launched 48 years ago, Huelva represents Europe’s oldest confab dedicated exclusively to movies from Ibero-America: Spain, Latin America and Portugal, and a traditional launchpad for Latino filmmakers in Spain and Europe.

Over the years other festivals have been adding parallel sections of Latin American cinema, a symptom of its growing international relevance.

“Our...

Julia Murat wins best diretor for Regra 34.

Marcelo Gomes’ trans drama Paloma was named best fiction film at Sunday’s (October 16) closing ceremony of 24th Rio International Film Festival – one of several films that stood out in the traditionally strong Première Brasil section.

Some of the features which received their world premiere in the section leave the so-called Cidade Maravilhosa (Wonderful City) of Rio with chances to build an international career, such as Property (Propriedade), Transe, and Kobra Self Portrait (Kobra Auto Retrato).

Paloma screened for the first time in Munich last July and tells of a trans woman desperate for a traditional church wedding.

Exclusive: FilmSharks has picked up world sales rights, excluding Latin America, to the crime thriller A Singular Crime (Un Crimen Argentino), directed by Lucas Combina.

Based on the best-selling novel by Reynaldo Sietecase, the film follows two jurists who will try to solve the case of a wealthy businessman’s disappearance while facing the interference of a police officer. The film was given a local theatrical release by Warner Bros. Pictures earlier this month and will be available exclusively on HBO Max across Latin America.

“We are happy to be chosen by these recognized companies to take care of their international sales,” Guido Rud of FilmSharks said. “We are one of the few Word Sales agencies that have agreements in place to rep their local language films, including Warner; Sony; Disney; Televisa-Videocine; Fox; Antena3; Banijay; Globo; ITV among other players.

The film is produced by Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pol Bossi-Cabe Bossi,...

Executive produced by Salma Hayek Pinault and directed by Rodrigo García (“Nine Lives”), in its second scene, Star Plus Productions’ “Santa Evita” has Dr. Pedro Aru arriving at Eva Perón’s home to embalm her corpse.

Many directors would dispatch his arrival in brief transition shots. García, however, uses eight – to capture the rain on he fateful day of July 26, 1952 (a shot from above of drenched black umbrellas packing out the screen), glimpse the poverty of the crowd lining the road and frame the first hints of Perón’s near sanctification in death with crowds keeping vigil outside the house’s gates, candles in hand.

Previewed at Conecta Fiction, Episode One of “Santa Evita” weighs in as classic Disney Latin America adult audience fare, an heir to 2018’s “Selena’s Secret” and 2019 “Monzón.”

A passion project of Mariana Pérez at The Walt Disney Company Latin America’s which has been 10 years in the making,...

Disney’s Latin American streamer talks up original dramas.

The Walt Disney Company’s Latin American streamer Star+ underlined its original production push by premiering the first episode of its Eva Perón miniseries Santa Evita at Spain’s Conecta Fiction & Entertainment this week, and showcasing four more dramas at the TV networking and co-pro event held in Toledo.

Launched last year, entertainment and sports platform Star+ is available in Latin America as a standalone service or, as part of Combo+, a bundled offering with access to Disney+.

Santa Evita, produced by Star Original Productions and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, tells...

Underscoring a push into more ambitious productions in Latin America, Star Plus, The Walt Disney Company’s year-old general entertainment and sports streaming service in the region, presented an early banner production, “Santa Evita,” at Conecta Fiction & Entertainment in a gala screening on June 22.

Attendees of the Toledo, Spain-based forum got an exclusive preview of the pilot episode to the seven-part limited series, which is set to bow July 26 on Star Plus Latin America, Hulu in the U.S. and Disney’s Star label in the rest of the world.

“Santa Evita” anticipates more “true life fiction” shows that Star Plus is developing, based on larger-than-life figures in Latin America’s culture and history.

“We’re serving several markets, and in order to connect with our audiences, we’re developing stories about people they know, whose stories they know,” said Leonardo Aranguibel, VP, head of production operations & strategy, The Walt Disney Company Latin America,...

Fabula-Fremantle’s “Santa Maria,” Leticia Dolera’s “Puberty” and “Fata Morgana,” a Western thriller executive produced by Béla Tarr, all feature at this year’s vastly expanded Conecta Fiction & Entertainment.

In further news announced Monday, Conecta Fiction will also stage the European premiere of Star Plus’ “Santa Evita,” executive produced by Salma Hayek Pinault and José Tamez, starring Natalia Oreiro, Ernesto Alterio, Darío Grandinetti and one of Disney’s most anticipated titles Spanish-language titles.

“Santa Evita” tells the true events-based and extraordinary story of the odyssey of Argentine First Lady Eva Perón’s embalmed body over three decades, her elevation to near sainthood saying much about Argentina and Latin America at large.

A panel discussion will be lead by the key cast, directors Rodrigo García and Alejandro Maci and the executives who led its production – Mariana Pérez, VP, development and production, Twdc Latin America, and Leonardo Aranguibel, VP, production, Twdc Latin America.

Fernando Díaz’s Machaco Films and Roxana Ramos’ Aramos Cine have partnered to set up a joint venture: La Puerta Roja, focused on horror and fantasy movies as well as working with prominent genre directors from Ibero-America. Both companies are based in Buenos Aires.

The idea sprang from Machaco and Aramos’s co-production partnership on Demian Rugna’s next project “When Evil Lurks.” Machaco had already produced Rugna’s “Terrified,” awarded at the Austin Fantastic Fest among a flurry of international kudos, and whose remake rights were acquired by Guillermo del Toro.

A cinema-tv production company, Machaco Films was founded over 20 years ago. Productions include Fernando Díaz’s “Soul’s Square,” and Rossana Díaz Costa’s “Trip to Timbuktu” and “A World for Julius,” based on Alfredo Bryce Echenique’s same-titled novel.

As for Aramos, it has raised international expectations with Alexi Tolstoy’s short story adaptation of “Vurdalak Blood,...

Argentina’s Benjamín Naishtat, writer-director of “Rojo,” is preparing “Pobres Pibes,” a contemporary noir thriller adapting novelist Robert Arlt’s 1929 “The Seven Madmen.”

Also working off “The Flamethrowers,” Arlt’s 1931 sequel to “The Seven Madmen,” Naishtat’s fourth feature marks his first adaptation. Following up “Rojo,” a big prize winner at the 2018 San Sebastian Festival, “Pobres Pibes” weighs in as, on paper, one of the major highlights at the San Sebastian Festival’s Co-Production Forum, which takes place online from Sept. 19-21.

Depicting “contemporary mayhem from the point of view of a young man with nothing to loose,” said Naishtat, “Pobres Pibes” will be an “unnerving, fast-paced, urban tale that could make you both laugh and feel uncomfortable,” he added.

“This somewhat existential noir,” he says in a presentation, “is built on the basis of a fascination for irredeemable losers and their preferred emotion, the one that governs our time: Resent.

Ioncinema.com’s Ioncinephile of the Month feature focuses on an emerging voice from the world of cinema. This month, we are pleased to introduce Argentinian born filmmaker Benjamín Naishtat – who premiered his third feature film (technically second) in the Platform section at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Starring Darío Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio, the enigmatic Alfredo Castro and the unforgettable and lingering presence of Diego Cremonesi, Rojo was a triple winner at the San Sebastián Film Festival. Distrib Films Us opens the film Friday, July 12 at Film at Lincoln Center and the Quad Cinema in New York City, and on Friday, July 19 at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.…...

Until recently, when a Spanish TV operator put up 100% finance, it retained nearly 100% of rights. Now, no one size fits all. Variety analyzes two projects that break the mold in Spain.

“La Sala”

Police TV thriller “La Sala” (The Room) shows three production companies greenlighting a TV project without TV network support — unthinkable until recently. Madrid-based Isla Audiovisual, creator of the CW’s “Star Crossed,” and Canary Islands’ CanCan and Funwood Media teamed to develop the series with their own creative and executive resources.

Producers pitched the script to TF1’s Newen, who put up financing against the series’ future international distribution. They pre-sold Spanish Svod to HBO España, and free-to-air TV rights to the regional pubcasters association Forta.

Directed by César Arriero and Manuel Sanabria, “La Sala” shot entirely in Gran Canaria, tapping into Canary Islands’ 45% tax credits for private investment in Spanish productions.

That helped cut the episodes...

Madrid — 1844 Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to Benjamín Naishtat’s “Rojo,” whose theatrical and home entertainment release will be handled by Distrib Films Us, headed by François Scippa-Kohn.

Theatrical releases in New York and Los Angeles are planned for spring 2019, followed by main other markets nationwide, said Distrib Films Us president Scippa-Kohn.

Closed in the run-up to Ventana Sur, the deal builds on a budding U.S. release partnership already in place for Paraguay Oscar entry “The Heiresses,” acquired like “Rojo” from Luxbox, Hedi Zardi and Fiorella Moretti’s Paris-based sales agent.

The partnership between 1844 Entertainment and Distrib Films Us forms part of a wider deal including other titles such as Iranian Oscar submission “No Date No Signature.”

Taking in two of the biggest Latin American arthouse titles of the year, the sales confirm 1844 Ent. and Distrib Films as a burgeoning U.S. outlet for Latin American and...

Benjamín Naishtat wins best director Silver Shell for Rojo.

Spanish production Between Two Waters (Entre Dos Aguas) by Isaki Lacuesta has won the top award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, marking a second Golden Shell for the Spanish director who after claiming the top prize in 2011 for The Double Steps.

Between Two Waters tells the story of two Roman brothers who meet again after years apart, one having spent some time in prison, the other in the army.

The title is a Spanish expression that translates to “neither here nor there”, and is also the title of a classic...

Banijay Rights has taken international distribution rights to Movistar+ original Spanish crime drama “Hierro,” the company announced Thursday. The eight-part series marks the first Spanish-language drama acquired by Banijay Rights, the distribution arm of Banijay Group.

Currently in production in the Canary Islands, “Hierro” is a Spanish-French-German co-production, produced by Portocabo, Atlantique Productions and Arte France for Movistar+, which will air the show in the first half of 2019. Created by Pepe Coira and directed by Jorge Coira it stars Spanish actress Candela Peña and Argentine actor Darío Grandinetti (pictured).

“Hierro” was named the best co-production TV series project presented at the European Film Market’s Berlinale Co-Production Market in February 2015. Set on the remote island of El Hierro in the Canary Islands it sees the discovery of the corpse of a young islander, found floating in the sea following an earthquake, mark the starting point for a tense political drama...

Spanish drama is going through a renaissance in recent years, helped by a multi-million dollar drive by pay-tv operator Movistar+. Banijay Rights is now getting in on the action, picking up the rights to crime thriller Hierro.

The distributor will sell the eight-part drama internationally, marking the company’s first Spanish-language drama acquisition. It takes all rights outside of Spain, France and Latin America.

The series is produced by Portocabo and Atlantique Productions for Movistar+ and Arte France. Created by Pepe Coira and directed by Jorge Coira, it takes place on a secluded island in the Canary Islands archipelago and stars Spanish actress Candela Peña (Princesas) and Argentinean actor Darío Grandinetti (Wild Tales). Hierro will launch in the first half of 2019.

Caroline Torrance, Head of Scripted, Banijay Rights, said, “From the first time we saw Hierro, we immediately knew we wanted to be a part of it. With electric storytelling and premium production values,...

The film stars Darío Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio and Alfredo Castro.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Rojo, Benjamin Naishtat’s 1970s drama that will have its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform section.

After its Toronto launch, it will then play in competition at San Sebastian Film Festival. International sales are handled by Luxbox.

The film follows a strange man who arrives at a restaurant in a quiet provincial city in an Argentine province, where he starts insulting renowned lawyer Claudio. The community supports the lawyer and the stranger is humiliated and thrown out of the place.

Films from Valeria Sarmiento, Benjamín Naishtat, Markus Schleinzer and Simon Jaquemet also selected.

The first films to compete for the Golden Shell at the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 21-29) have been announced.

They include Claire Denis’ English-language sci-fi title High Life, which stars Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin and Robert Pattinson, Naomi Kawase’s Vision, which also stars Binoche alongside Masatoshi Nagase, and South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s Illang: The Wolf Brigade , a remake of anime Jin-Roh from Ghost In The Shell writer Mamoru Oshii. Kim’s I Saw The Devil competed at the festival in 2010.

Chilean director Valeria...

Sony Pictures International Productions has come on board to co-produce the feature film debut of up-and-coming Spanish filmmaker David Victori, greenlighting his horror thriller El Pacto (The Covenant) together with Spanish producers Ikiru Films and 4Cats Pictures.

El Pacto follows Monica, a mother who, faced with the unexpected and imminent death of her only daughter, descends into Hell itself to stop it from happening. Belen Rueda (The Orphanage) will play the lead, with fellow Spaniards Mireia Oriol and Dario Grandinetti co-starring.

“What would you be capable of doing to stop the death of a loved one and what happens to...

Pedro Almodóvar bounces back with an absorbing saga of a mother and daughter told in an interesting style. A woman feels isolated, powerless, alone and anguished about what has happened in her life. Is any of it her fault? Or is all of it her fault? How do we hold relationships together, or do they fall apart no matter what we do? Highly rewarding dramas still exist; they don’t all go begging for Oscar nominations… just learn to read subtitles and you too can find out how the rest of the world lives.

Julieta

Blu-ray

Sony Pictures Classics

2016 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date March 21, 2017 / 30.99

Starring: Adriana Ugarte, Emma Suárez, Michelle Jenner, Darío Grandinetti, Rossy de Palma,Susi Sá Sánchez, Joaquín Notario, Pilar Castro, Tómas del Estal.

Cinematography: Jean-Claude Larrieu

Film Editor: José Salcedo

Original Music: Alberto Iglesias

Written by Pedro Almodóvar based on three short stories by Alice Munro

Produced by Augustín Almodóvar,...

Academy Award winner Pedro Almodovar returns to the helm with Julieta.

This female centered film looks at Julieta, in her older and younger days, as she navigates through her story as a brokenhearted woman who faces the painful mystery of her long alienation from her daughter.

The film stars Emma Suarez (Vacas) and Adriana Ugarte (Palmeras En La Nieve) in the title role.

It also stars Daniel Grao (Julia’S Eyes), Inma Cuesta (The Bride), Dario Grandinetti (Talk To Her), Michelle Jenner (Our Lovers) and Rossy de Palma (Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown).

The bonus materials on the Blu-ray and DVD will include two featurettes featuring commentaries from Pedro Almodovar, Rossy de Palma and Adriana Ugarte. It also has a red carpet presentation and look into the opening night at the Museum of Modern Art’s Almodover Retrospective in “Celebrating Director Pedro Almodovar.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

In Julieta,...

Internationally acclaimed auteur and Academy Award winner Pedro Almodóvar (Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Talk to Her, 2002) is back in the director’s chair for his 20th feature film when Julieta debuts on Blu-ray™, DVD and digital March 21 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Emma Suárez (Vacas) and Adriana Ugarte (Palmeras En La Nieve) share the title role as older and younger versions of the same character in the story of a brokenhearted woman who faces the painful mystery of her long alienation from her daughter during flashbacks on her life and the most important events concerning her estranged daughter. Julieta also stars Daniel Grao (Julia’s Eyes), Inma Cuesta (The Bride), Darío Grandinetti (Talk to Her), Michelle Jenner (Our Lovers) and Rossy de Palma (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown).

Bonus materials on the Julieta Blu-ray and DVD include two featurettes. Fans join Pedro Almodóvar, Rossy de Palma and...

Left to right: Daniel Grao as Xoan and Adriana Ugarte as Earlier Julieta

@ El Deseo, in Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta. Photo by Manolo Pavón, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

2016 certainly turned out to be a good year for films, particularly dramas, and Juleta is one the last of those to come to local screens. A nominee for Best Foreign Language Film in the upcoming Oscars, the Spanish-language Julieta is simply one of director Pedro Almodovar’s best – a visually lush, beautifully constructed, haunting mystery about love and loss, tied up with a satisfying but unexpected ending.

The acclaimed Spanish director’s latest film is a drama in a familiar vein for him, a tale of a woman – a mother – in crisis, yet Julieta is brilliantly fresh at the same time. Julieta (Emma Suarez) is a successful, beautiful woman living in Madrid, who is on the verge of leaving her home...

Eliseo Subiela, the director of the magic realism school who directed 1992 rom-com The Dark Side Of The Heart starring Dario Grandinetti, has died. He was 71.

Argentinian trade body Asociación General de Directores Autores Cinematográficos y Audiovisuales de Argentina released the news over the weekend.

The immediate cause of death was unknown, although Argentinian newspaper Clarín reported that he recently suffered a heart attack.

Subiela was born in Buenos Aires on December 27, 1944. Besides The Dark Side Of The Heart, his most renowned directing credits include Last Images Of The Shipwreck and Man Facing Southeast.

Subiela died two days before what would have been his 72nd birthday. He was previously married to Mora Moglia.

Alfred Hitchcock once said, 'Drama is life with the dull bits cut out'. To twist that a bit, Pedro Almodóvar's new feature film Julieta is a slice of life with the drama cut out. The story of one woman's journey through life, love, motherhood, and grief, it sadly lacks any great new insight into these states, nor does it follow through on the few intriguing narrative twists it does offer. Almodóvar may once have lay claim as Spain's answer to Douglas Sirk, but in this new film, he has abandoned the drama for the mellow, or perhaps more accurately (as Hitchcock would say), the dull. Julieta (Emma Suárez) is about to move to Portugal with her partner Lorenzo (Darío Grandinetti) when she runs into Beatriz...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Julieta Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya Grade: A- Director: Pedro Almodóvar Written by: Pedro Almodóvar, based on Alice Munro’s stories Cast: Emma Suarez, Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Dario Grandinetti Screened at: Sony, NYC, 9/6/16 Opens: December 21, 2016 At one point however brief, you get the impression that Pedro Almodóvar is setting us up to watch a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Happily though, at least for people like me not particularly fond of the writer-director’s goofy comedies and lavish worship of women, “Julieta” is one of the Spaniard’s most accessible movies. Maybe that’s because Almodóvar takes as his inspiration three stories [ Read More ]

The post Julieta Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"I'm going to tell you everything I wasn't able to tell you." Sony Pictures Classics has debuted an official Us trailer for Pedro Almodóvar's latest film, titled Julieta, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Julieta stars Emma Suárez as a mother living with her daughter, played by Blanca Parés. After a casual encounter, she decides to confront the pains in her life and the most important events about her stranded daughter. Also starring Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Darío Grandinetti, Michelle Jenner and Rossy de Palma. This received mostly positive reviews out of Cannes, and looks like it's another colorful and energetic journey into the life of a vibrant woman. Check out the trailer below. Here's the official Us trailer (+ original poster) for Pedro Almodóvar's Julieta, direct from YouTube: Julieta lives in Madrid with her daughter Antía. They both suffer in silence over the loss of Xoan,...

The films of Pedro Almodóvar always draw out the oft-melodramatic complexities of everyday existence, especially for the multi-faceted female characters that drive the narratives. In Julieta, Almodóvar crafts perhaps his most straight-forward story, shorn of many of the melodramatic flourishes and plot twists that so often permeate his films, yet nonetheless powerful and provocative.

Based on three short stories by Alice Munro, Julieta opens with Julieta (Emma Suárez), a middle-aged woman living in Madrid and preparing to move to Portugal with her boyfriend Lorenzo (Darío Grandinetti). A chance encounter with Beatriz (Michelle Jenner) results in Julieta learning the location of her estranged daughter Antía (Blanca Parés). Suddenly, Julieta no longer wants to leave Madrid. She breaks it off with Lorenzo and returns to her old apartment, where she begins to compose a long narrative in a series of journals, addressed to her daughter.

The film then moves back in time,...

A woman recalls the pivotal moments of her adult life in Julieta, the latest film from Pedro Almodóvar and his fifth to screen in competition here in Cannes. It’s adapted from a series of short stories of Canadian Nobel prize-winning author Alice Munro and marks a return to the female-centric dramas with which the director made his name, having recently tried his hand at musical (I’m So Excited) and psychological horror (The Skin I Live In). It’s charmingly self-aware in its use of kitsch and melodrama — almost to the point of self-parody — and, while small in scope, it’s also one of his lusher and leaner offerings.

We open on blood red silk and yellow titles, a characteristically strong visual language we’ll gorge on for the rest of the movie. We find the titular woman (played here by Emma Suárez) packing up her worldly belongings. We...

Alfred Hitchcock once said, 'Drama is life with the dull bits cut out'. To twist that a bit, Pedro Almodóvar's new feature film Julieta is a slice of life with the drama cut out. The story of one woman's journey through life, love, motherhood, and grief, it sadly lacks any great new insight into these states, nor does it follow through on the few intriguing narrative twists it does offer. Almodóvar may once have layed claim as Spain's answer to Douglas Sirk, but in this new film, he has abandoned the drama for the mellow, or perhaps more accurately (as Hitchcock would say), the dull. Julieta (Emma Suárez) is about to move to Portugal with her partner Lorenzo (Darío Grandinetti) when she runs into Beatriz...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Pedro Almodóvar's Julieta, based on three short stories by Alice Munro and featuring Emma Suarez, Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Dario Grandinetti, Michelle Jenner, Pilar Castro, Nathalie Poza, Susi Sanchez, Joaquin Notario, Priscilla Delgado, Blanca Pares, Ariadna Martin and Rossy de Palma, opens in Spain today, and we're collecting the first round of reviews in English. For Variety's Peter Debruge, "While Julieta represents a welcome return to the female-centric storytelling that has earned Almodóvar his greatest acclaim, it is far from this reformed renegade’s strongest or most entertaining work. Instead, following the high-altitude frivolity of I’m So Excited, the director’s relatively tame 20th feature finds him once again adopting a serious (read, 'respectable') attitude, eschewing comedy and high-camp melodrama in favor of plain old mellow drama." » - David Hudson...

Pedro Almodóvar's Julieta, based on three short stories by Alice Munro and featuring Emma Suarez, Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Dario Grandinetti, Michelle Jenner, Pilar Castro, Nathalie Poza, Susi Sanchez, Joaquin Notario, Priscilla Delgado, Blanca Pares, Ariadna Martin and Rossy de Palma, opens in Spain today, and we're collecting the first round of reviews in English. For Variety's Peter Debruge, "While Julieta represents a welcome return to the female-centric storytelling that has earned Almodóvar his greatest acclaim, it is far from this reformed renegade’s strongest or most entertaining work. Instead, following the high-altitude frivolity of I’m So Excited, the director’s relatively tame 20th feature finds him once again adopting a serious (read, 'respectable') attitude, eschewing comedy and high-camp melodrama in favor of plain old mellow drama." » - David Hudson...