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Top Spanish pay TV/SVOD player Movistar Plus+ has unveiled three new originals, all scripted series, which drives a direct through-line back to a talent-driven strategy which has reaped spectacular recent rewards with its winning the two top prizes at March’s Series Mania, Europe’s No. 1 TV fest, as well as a top prize at May’s Cannes Film Festival.

In one announcement, Alauda Ruíz de Azua, whose “Querer” won the Series Mania main competition Grand Prix is developing a series exploring the universe of platforms like OnlyFans.

“It’s a universe which is in constant expansion, and asks questions which have not so easy answers while questioning traditional pornography and how we live online sexuality. It’s a projects which touches a high contemporary issues,” Ruíz de Azua explained at a Madrid press conference on Thursday.The Movistar Plus+ Original will be produced with Kowalski Films and Feelgood Media,...

Movistar Plus+ has again moved to calm fears over its future in original films and TV shows, with senior leaders saying the company remains a “magnet for creative talent” in Spain.

Movistar Plus+ CEO Daniel Domenjó last week addressed an audience of more than 400 Spanish industry leaders and pledged to keep the Spanish content giant as the “driving force” of the local creative sector.

This was at least in part a response to the ongoing concerns about Movistar Plus+’s appetite for original content following the shock exit of the much-respected content chief Domingo Corral. Domenjó, the the CEO and co-founder of Spanish producer Satisfaction Iberia, was installed as Movistar Plus+ CEO just weeks before Corral’s exit.

His the tone at the Teatro Real in Madrid was clearly one of reassurance, with the exec saying: “We want to continue being the driving force of the industry, the magnet for creative talent in this country.

A Useful Ghost, the debut feature from Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke that THR had featured as a hidden gem at Cannes, has won the Grand Prize at the 64th edition of Cannes Critics’ Week.

The absurdist fantasy comedy portrays a married couple where the wife dies of a respiratory illness caused by dust pollution, and then returns to the grieving husband as a ghost in the form of a vacuum cleaner. The Thai feature picked up the Grand Prix Ami Paris trophy as awards for the Critics Week section in Cannes were announced on Wednesday. The film stars Davika Hoorne and Witsarut Himmarat.

Also, the French Touch Prize of the Jury for best first feature went to Chechen director Deni Oumar Pitsaev for Imago, a France-Belgium co-production. And the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for best actor went to Canada’s Theodore Pellerin for his performance in French director Pauline Loques’ Nino.

Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s comedy-drama A Useful Ghost has won the Grand Prix in the independent Critics’ Week sidebar in Cannes.

The film was chosen by a jury led by president Rodrigo Sorogoyen, and fellow jurors Jihane Bougrine, Josée Deshaies, Yulina Evina Bhara and Daniel Kaluuya.

Scroll down for the full list of prizes

Set in Thailand, Boonbunchachoke’s debut feature centres on a man grieving the loss of his wife to dust pollution. He discovers that she has been reincarnated in a vacuum cleaner, which leads to their bond rekindling.

Written by Boonbunchachoke, the film is produced by Cattleya Paosrijeroen...

Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s “A Useful Ghost” has picked up Critics Week’s Grand Prize.

The film has been picking up fans among journalists since the premiere, intrigued by its absurd yet sweet story of a woman who dies from dust pollution and a husband who’s shocked to find out her spirit has been reincarnated – in a vacuum cleaner.

“A ghost-possessed vacuum cleaner might sound like standard horror fare, but in the hands of Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, it transforms into a sly commentary on pollution, power dynamics, and the cost of living crisis in Bangkok,” wrote Variety’s Naman Ramachandran earlier this week, with the director adding:

“Thailand is well known for horror cinema, and we also have a genre that might not travel abroad very much – horror comedy. But with this film, I try not to follow the conventions of both paths. One of my first ideas was...

Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s zany romantic drama A Useful Ghost has won the top prize at Cannes Critics’ Week.

The feature, which is the first Thai film to play in the parallel section for a number of years, won the inaugural Ami Paris Grand Prize.

This year’s jury was presided over by Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen, who was joined by Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah UK actor Daniel Kaluuya, Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara.

A Useful Ghost co-stars top Thai actress, model and influencer Davika Hoorne as Nat, a woman who dies of dust pollution and then returns as a ghost in the form of a vacuum cleaner, determined to save her family from a similar fate.

The feature, which is the first Thai film to play in the parallel section for a number of years,...

At France’s Series Mania in April, now firmly consolidated as Europe’s biggest TV festival, Spain scored a historic double, scooping its two top awards, Competition’s Grand Prize with “Querer” and its International Panorama major sidebar with “Celeste.”

Both “Querer” and “Celeste” were produced by Spain’s Movistar Plus+, “Celeste” along with The Mediapro Studio. Since Series Mania launched its International Panorama in 2018, no country, let alone the same company, has won its two biggest prizes in one and the same year.

In recent dealing, Arte France, the French leg of pan-European public broadcaster Arte, also co-produced Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The New Years” and acquired “Querer” and “La Mesías,” the biggest series to date from “Velvet” creators and Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – “Los Javis.”

“It’s the first time that we have so many projects at the same time with the same commissioner and the same program...

For the first time since 1988, Spain has two movies in Cannes main competition, neither of whose directors are Pedro Almodóvar: Carla Simón’s “Romería” and Oliver Laxe’s “Sirat.”

That says much about this year’s Cannes Official Selection, packed with emerging talent. The double also marks, however, what might prove a turning point for Spanish film. From 1988, the feeding frenzy died for films by Carlos Saura in particular and at large titles picturing Spain’s dark past from which it had happily just emerged with democracy. Outside Almodóvar, this century, in 15 editions, only one Spanish director had scored a Cannes Competition place since Isabel Coixet in 2009: Albert Serra with “Pacification” in 2022.

Now, however, France – its big festivals, networks, distributors, sale agents, critics and audiences – are embracing Spain with energy, both Spanish film and indeed TV. When it comes to Spain, the change has been long in the making.

The French Riviera is set to host international cinema again this year. Getting featured in the Cannes Film Festival is a lifelong ambition for many filmmakers, and once again, its 78th edition is going to fulfill many of these dreams. The Festival will take place from May 13 to May 24, 2025, and this year is particularly interesting for some new reasons.

One of the reasons is the recent announcement by President Donald Trump about potential tariffs on films from countries across the border. Other than these, there will be the usual glamorous red carpets, neck-to-neck competition, and maybe a bit of political drama as well, which makes the Cannes Film Festival a special event.

Jury of the Cannes Film Festival 2025

The jury lineup is quite stacked this year. It’s French actress Juliette Binoche who is leading the Main Competition jury, and she is joined by a talented team. Halle Berry’s...

On the eve of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Spanish cinema is riding high with two films in the event’s official competition – “Sirat” and “Romería” – and another selected for Critics’ Week – “Sleepless City.” However, a shadow looms over the celebratory spirit as one of the country’s most important producers and champions of groundbreaking and industry-defining series and latterly cinema, Movistar Plus+ director of fiction and entertainment Domingo Corral, is exiting the company, leaving the future of one of the nation’s largest indie cinema backers in question.

For over a decade, Corral was the driving force behind Movistar Plus+’s push into original storytelling, championing ambitious series that redefined Spain’s place in the international audiovisual landscape. Under his leadership, the platform evolved into one of Europe’s most respected producers of scripted content, rivaling the likes of Netflix and HBO Europe in prestige.

His exit, announced...

FilmSharks has bowed the first trailer for “Death of a Comedian” (“La Muerte de un Comediante”), the directorial debut of Argentine actor Diego Peretti. The film, which Peretti also wrote and headlines, wrapped post-production last week and is now headed to market with worldwide sales handled by FilmSharks.

It would be normal to list producers but this project has 10,190, individual investors brought together by the Orsai Community. It makes “Death of a Comedian” as one of the more novel Argentine productions in recent memory. The film is produced by author, journalist and cultural entrepreneur Hernán Casciari’s Orsai, which finances all its projects through its massive community-driven crowdfunding model totalling over 15,000 micro investors.

The film follows Juan Debré (Peretti), an actor who’s spent a lifetime playing the hero in a TV series while remaining detached from his own identity. When diagnosed with a terminal illness, he embarks on a surreal journey to Belgium,...

Pedro Almodóvar, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz have signed an open letter expressing support for departing Movistar Plus+ content chief Domingo Corral.

It was announced last week that Corral would be exiting his role as Director of Fiction & Entertainment at the Telefónica-owned streamer – news that followed a spate of other major management changes.

The surprise announcement has now led 144 Spanish entertainment industry professionals to put their name to the open letter, which was reported in several local news outlets.

“In light of Domingo Corral’s departure as director of fiction and entertainment at Movistar+, after 10 years working to bring Spanish film and series to the top of the national and international audiovisual scene, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to him and his entire team,” the letter begins.

“During a decade that has been revolutionary in the sector, thanks also to Telefónica’s commitment to the creation of original content,...

Top Spanish film talent including Pedro Almodóvar, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz have signed a public letter of support for Domingo Corral, following his surprise departure as head of content at Movistar Plus+ last week.

Corral’s departure shortly before Cannes has baffled the Spanish industry. A total of 144 Spanish professionals have signed the letter of support.

They all thank Corral for his work at Movistar Plus+, the pay-tv and SVoD service of Spanish telco giant Telefonica Group, a key player in the Spanish industry.

Corral led the streamer’s move into original productions, first in series and more recently in features,...

After launching just two months ago with a splash from Berlin, upstart distributor 1-2 Special has made two key hires, both of whom are former industry veterans from Mubi.

Amanda Trokan and Nico Chapin have joined 1-2 Special to bolster the distributor’s presence ahead of Cannes. Trokan will serve as Senior Vice President of Acquisitions, and Chapin will be Vice President of Publicity.

Former Sideshow executive Jason Hellerstein founded the company and wants to acquire and release films from top-tier domestic and international festivals. The first feature it acquired and plans to release is Radu Jude’s “Kontinental ’25,” which made its premiere at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival and won the screenplay prize.

The team will have a strong presence in Cannes as they look to strategically expand the current slate.

Trokan led the North American programming team at Mubi, overseeing platform curation and licensing and negotiating a...

New York-based distribution company 1-2 Special has appointed Amanda Trokan as senior vice president of acquisitions and Nico Chapin as vice president of publicity.

The company was founded in February by former Sideshow executive Jason Hellerstein with the goal of acquiring and releasing films from top-tier domestic and international festivals. The company recently acquired its first feature, “Kontinental ‘25,” from director Radu Jude, out of the Berlin International Film Festival. The hires come as 1-2 Special is gearing up for Cannes.

Trokan joins 1-2 Special after leading the North American programming team at global streamer Mubi. While overseeing platform curation and licensing, Trokan negotiated deals for new films from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Quentin Dupieux, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Alex Ross Perry, Rebecca Zlotowski, Albert Serra, Tyler Taormina, Martín Rejtman, Vera Drew, Alonso Ruizpalacios, Radu Jude and others.

Trokan joined Mubi as a decade-plus HBO veteran, spending eight years as an executive on the company’s film acquisitions team.

UK filmmaker and cinematographer Molly Manning Walker will preside over the jury of Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar Un Certain Regard.

Walker’s debut feature How To Have Sex premiered in the strand in 2023 where it won the top prize.

Joining Walker is French-Swiss director and screenwriter Louise Courvoisier, whose debut Holy Cow won the youth award in Un Certain Regard in 2024, and Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini who took home best director the same year for The Damned.

Rounding out the jury is Vanja Kaludjercic, director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Argentinian actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart.

There are...

Left-Handed Girl, directed by Shih-Ching Tsou and co-written by filmmaker Sean Baker, has been selected to compete in the 2025 Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival. The Taipei-set family drama is one of seven features included in this year’s lineup for the parallel section, which focuses on first and second works from emerging directors.

Tsou, who previously collaborated with Baker on Take Out, Tangerine, Starlet, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, directs the film solo. Baker also co-edited the project while overseeing the awards run for his film Anora, which won Best Picture, Best Director, and three other Oscars earlier this year.

Left-Handed Girl follows a single mother and her two daughters as they navigate the complexities of life in the Taiwanese capital. Janel Tsai, an actress and model based in Taiwan, leads the cast. The film blends social realism with a focus on working-class life, continuing themes explored...

The 64th Cannes Critics’ Week will open with Adam’s Interest by Belgian director Laura Wandel and close with Dandelion’s Odyssey, the animated feature debut by Japanese filmmaker Momoko Seto. This year’s edition, which runs May 14–22, includes seven feature films in competition and four presented out of competition.

Wandel’s new film follows a young mother, a malnourished child, and a hospital nurse, played by Anamaria Vartolomei and Léa Drucker. Shot with handheld camerawork, Adam’s Interest marks Wandel’s return after Playground, her 2021 feature that portrayed schoolyard bullying with stark realism. The film will screen as a special presentation.

Among the films selected for competition is Left-Handed Girl, the first solo feature by Taiwanese director Shih-Ching Tsou. Set in Taipei, the film centers on a single mother and her two daughters attempting to rebuild their lives. Sean Baker, known for The Florida Project and Tangerine, co-wrote, produced,...

The Cannes Critics’ Week 2025 selection boasts Best Picture winner Sean Baker’s latest project.

Baker collaborates once more with his “Take Out” co-director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, who makes her directorial debut with “Left-Handed Girl.” Tsou also produced Baker’s “Tangerine” (which she starred in) and “The Florida Project,” and executive-produced “Starlet.” Now, “Left-Handed Girl” incorporates Baker’s social-realist approach with the Taipei-set tragicomedy “Left-Handed Girl,” which follows a single mother and her two daughters building a new life in the Taiwanese capital. Baker cowrites, edits, and produces the film.

“The film was edited by Sean. It’s true that there’s a connection, I’m not going to hide it, and I don’t think Shih-Ching Tsou will either,” Cannes Critics’ Week artistic director Ava Cahen told Deadline. “It’s a bit reminiscent of ‘Tangerine’ and ‘The Florida Project,’ for the way it captures reality, with a form of wonder,...

Seven films will compete in the 2025 International Critics Week section at the Cannes Film Festival, Critics Week organizers announced on Monday morning.

The films, all from first- and second-time directors, include “Left-Handed Girl” a family film set in Taipei, directed by Shih-Ching and produced and co-edited by reigning Palme d’Or and Oscar Best Picture winner Sean Baker. Baker was working on the film during the awards campaign for his film “Anora.”

The competing features come from Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Critics Week, or La Semaine de la Critique, also announced four special screenings, including “L’intérêt d’Adam” (“Adam’s Sake”) from director Laura Wandel, which will serve as the sidebar’s opening-night film.

Critics Week, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021, is an independent sidebar section in Cannes. It was the section that brought the Cannes debuts of Guillermo del Toro,...

The Cannes Critics’ Week, the festival sidebar focusing on directors’ first and second features, unveiled its 2025 lineup Monday.

Competition highlights include Left-Handed Girl, the solo directorial debut of Taiwanese filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou, known for her long-standing collaboration with Anora director Sean Baker (Tsou co-directed 2004’s Take Out and was a producer on Baker’s Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket). Baker co-wrote and edited the Taipei-set urban melodrama, which centers on a single mother and her two daughters navigating life on the margins of the Taiwanese capital.

Also debuting in Critics’ Week is Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke with A Useful Ghost, a surrealist take on motherhood in which a woman reincarnates as a vacuum cleaner. Thai actress Mai Davika Hoorne leads the cast.

European features in competition include Pauline Loquès’ Nino, starring fast-rising Quebecois actor Théodore Pellerin (Lurker) as a young man adrift in the city after losing his...

Cannes Critics’ Week, the festival sidebar spotlighting first and second features, has revealed the 11 competition and special screenings titles for its 64th edition running May 14-22.

Scroll down for full list of titles

Seven films will vie for four top prizes in competition, awarded by a jury helmed by Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen. Five of those are first films that will compete for the Camera d’Or. Six films in the line-up are directed by women.

Ava Cahen, now in her fourth year as artistic director, told Screen this year’s selection is “a daring combination of films with panache that celebrates new voices.

Cannes Critics’ Week has unveiled the lineup of its 64th edition, which will be dominated by French and Belgian movies, kicking off with Laura Wandel’s tense social drama “Adam’s Interest.”

“Adam’s Interest” marks Wandel’s follow up to “Playground,” which won a Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize in 2021. The film takes place in the pediatric unit of hospital and follows a distraught mother, her son and the nurse who look after them. “Adam’s Interest” stars two of France’s biggest stars, Léa Drucker (“Custody”) and Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”).

Curated by artistic director Ava Cahen and her selection committee, the lineup spans 11 feature films, six of which are directed by women. As many as 1,000 films from 102 countries were submitted to this year’s Critics’ Week. The selection is dedicated to first and second features, running alongside the Cannes Film Festival.

Some of the most anticipated films in the lineup include “Left-Handed Girl,...

Belgian director Laura Wandel’s child custody drama Adam’s Interest, starring Anamaria Vartolomei and Léa Drucker, will open the 64th Cannes Critics’ Week, which unveiled its 2025 selection today.

The second feature from Wandal after gritty childhood bullying drama Playground, the handheld camera-shot feature follows three characters in a paediatric ward: a helpless mother (Vartolomei), her malnourished son, and a nurse (Drucker).

The film, which premieres out of competition, is one of 11 first and second feature films, seven in competition, selected out of 1,000 submitted film for the upcoming edition running from May 14 to 22.

Another 13 short films selected from 2,340 submissions will be announced on April 17.

Competition

Competition seven titles include Taiwanese director Shih-Ching Tsou’s Taipei-set urban melodrama Left-Handed Girl. It marks a first solo feature for Tsou, a long-time collaborator of Sean Baker, who co-wrote and edited the work.

The tragicomedy follows the odyssey of a single mother and her...

Cannes Film Festival head Thierry Frémaux has promised “a raft of big stars” at its 78th edition in May, while acknowledging the challenges facing Hollywood and questions around its future.

Speaking to journalists after announcing his 2025 Official Selection in Paris on Thursday morning, Frémaux was replying to a question on whether the lineup offered the prospect of fewer Hollywood stars this year, even though names poised to hit the red carpet include Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone.

“There are a lot of American films, especially in Competition, since even the film by South African Oliver Hermanus is an American film,” he said.

“But it’s true — the question has been asked for the last two or three years, not only about the effect of external factors impacting the Hollywood industry such as the writers strike or the fires at the beginning of the year but also about the U.

Among the lineup for the Cannes Film Festival’s 78th edition are some big names from Hollywood and global cinema. We already knew that Tom Cruise will light the fuse on Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning on May 14 out of competition, while there was plenty of speculation that Scarlett Johansson would have a pair of movies on the Croisette. The latter has now been confirmed with Johansson’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great set for Un Certain Regard, and her acting reteam with Wes Anderson in his latest, The Phoenician Scheme, in Competition. Also confirmed is Ari Aster’s Eddington with Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone.

Many more stars are potentially in store now that the bulk of the official selection has been revealed. Not everyone is confirmed to attend the Riviera shindig, but here’s a look at some of the possibilities.

Cannes...

The Cannes Film Festival revealed its Official Selection on Thursday morning in Paris, and it was a typically star-studded and intriguing lineup. You can see the full lineup here. Below are our five key takeaways from the reveal.

1. Changing Of The Guard? Julia Ducournau poses with the Palme d’Or for ‘Titane’ in 2021

This is a fresh lineup. Cannes Film Festival head Thierry Frémaux said there’s more to come, but this wasn’t your typical Cannes Competition lineup studded with older, familiar auteurs. The festival is opening with a female debut filmmaker for the first time in the shape of Amélie Bonnin’s Leave One Day, and seven of the 19 films in Competition are first-time Palme d’Or contenders. The average age in Competition must be significantly lower than most years. Yes, there are three previous Palme d’Or winners in the lineup, but the likes of Mascha Schilinski,...

Oscar-winning actor Daniel Kaluuya has joined the jury for the 2025 Cannes Critics’ Week, a prominent sidebar of the prestigious film festival dedicated to first and second feature films. The jury will be headed by Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen, known for his critically acclaimed works like The Beasts, which earned multiple Goya Awards in 2022.

The five-person jury, which will convene during the festival’s Critics’ Week running from May 14–22, will also include Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies, and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara. Together, the jury will select winners for several prestigious awards, including the Ami Paris Grand Prize for best feature, the French Touch Prize of the Jury, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award, and the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for best short film.

Sorogoyen, who had originally been set to lead the 2024 jury before stepping down due to personal circumstances, shared his belief that the...

Oscar-winning British actor Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah) has joined the jury for this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week sidebar, headed up by Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen (The Beasts).

Completing the five-person jury are Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies (Passages, The Beast), and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara (Tiger Stripes, Autobiography).

Together, they will judge the competition titles for the 64th Critics’ Week, Cannes’ sidebar section for first and second features. The Critics’ Week runs May 14–22.

“[Cannes Critics’ Week] unequivocally demonstrates its commitment to supporting and believing in young filmmakers,” Sorogoyen said in a statement, emphasizing the importance of the section’s focus on new voices.

Sorogoyen made his feature debut in 2013 with Stockholm, co-written with Isabel Peña, kicking off a productive collaboration that has included May God Save Us (2016), The Candidate (2018), and Mother (2019), as well as The Beasts in 2022. The slow-burn thriller starring Marina Foïs and Denis Ménochet,...

Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen has been named president of the jury for this year’sCannes’ Critics’ Week, the festival’s parallel selection dedicated to first and second features running May 14-22.

Sorogoyen was forced to step down from the position ahead of last year’s festival due to personal circumstances and was replaced by French producer Sylvie Pialat.

Joining Sorogoyen on the 2025 jury are Oscar-winning Britishactor Daniel Kaluuya,Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian director of photography Josée Deshaies and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara.

Sorogoyen’s films includeThe Beasts, which premiered in the Cannes Premiere strand in 2022 and went on...

Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen, whose recent credits include The Beasts and series such as Riot Police and The New Years, has been announced as jury president for this year’s edition of Cannes Critics’ Week.

He will be joined by Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah UK actor Daniel Kaluuya, Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara.

The parallel Cannes section devoted to emerging talents and first and second features runs from May 14 to 22 this year.

Sorogoyen and his jury will present La Semaine de la Critique’s Ami Paris Grand Prize for Best feature film, the French Touch Prize of the Jury, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for Best actor or actress, and the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for Best short film.

After stepping down from the role due personal reasons in 2024, Spanish filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Rodrigo Sorogoyen has been invited back at Cannes’ Critics Week to preside over the jury of the 64th edition.

Sorogoyen is best known for delivering films and series boasting a political perspective on the world. His most recent success is The Beasts” which premiered at Cannes and went on to win nine Goya Awards and even nab France’s Cesar Award for best foreign film in 2023.

Critics Week, which is curated by Ava Cahen and champions first and second films, has assembled an eclectic jury around Sorogoyen, including Oscar-winning British actor Daniel Kaluuya, Moroccan journalist and songwriter Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies, and Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara.

“To offer Rodrigo Sorogoyen the presidency of the Semaine de la Critique Jury is to show him all the love we have for his cinema, but...

After putting out our predictions for the Critics’ Week, Directors’ Fortnight and Un Certain Regard programmes we now look at the Cannes Premiere section. Launched four years directly after the lost, pandemic edition, the section helped re-frame the Un Certain Regard section as a section for discovery from mostly new auteurs and it allows the fest to cast a bigger net grabbing a good quartet of French cinema items that would normally have fought to a place at le Grand Théâtre Lumière. Previously we’ve seen Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts, Víctor Erice’s Close Your Eyes, Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka and Alain Guiraudie’s Miséricorde.…...

In one of the highest profile deals announced at Series Mania, European TV giant Beta Film has boarded crime series “Cecilie Mars,” created and helmed by Christoffer Boe, rated one of Denmark’s best directors, and produced by Karoline Leth for double Oscar winner Zentropa Entertainments(“In a Better World,” “Another Drink”).

Beta Film has secured international distribution rights to the series which will be presented by Boe and Leth at Series Mania’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions on March 25 in Lille’s Grand Palais Grand Théâtre, its biggest screening venue which is still habitually packed for the Sessions.

“Cecilie Mars” rates as one of the Sessions’ biggest 2025 buzz titles. Described by Beta Film as a “fresh and twisted take on the thriller genre,” the six-part series turns on Cecilie Mars, a driven and model new police commissioner who is secretly consumed by a past trauma. When a case hits too...

Film Movement has announced the acquisition of U.S. distribution rights for Pedro Martin-Calero’s unsettling horror feature debut “The Wailing” (“El llanto”), a standout during its world premiere at last year’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

The announcement was made by Michael Rosenberg, president, Film Movement and Vicente Canales, managing director of Film Factory Entertainment, the film’s sales agent.

The film, a Spain-Argentina co-production, earned Martin-Calero the Silver Shell for best director at San Sebastián and was nominated for the Spanish Academy Goya Award for best new director. It is set for a theatrical release in 2025, followed by digital and home entertainment releases.

In the film, three young women separated by decades and thousands of miles are terrorized by the same ethereal threat that nobody, not even they, can properly see. The entity manifests more like a trick of lighting than anything corporeal. In each case, when the...

Over the last six years, thanks in the main to the SVOD revolution, Spain, once known for select auteurs – Pedro Almodóvar, J.A. Bayona, Fernando Trueba – has stepped fully onto the world stage as a European film and TV power.

Appropriately then, Spain is the Country in Focus 2025 at Berlin Festival’s European Film Market. Its movie strand says much about Spanish cinema, while Berlin, at large, points up Spain’s larger film industry challenges, shared by much of Europe.

The Focus’ biggest takeaway is Spain’s dramatic explosion of new talent, both producers and directors. In a Spain at the Forefront showcase, 10 Spanish producers making up a Producers Program will talk up their companies and current projects. Another 10 producers form part of Visitors Program at the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

Launched in 1995, Morena Films will unveil “8,” the latest from “Sex and Lucía” helmer Julio Medem. Avalon, producer of Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,...

French festival Series Mania has revealed its lineup, featuring Joe Wright’s “Mussolini: Son of the Century,” “Querer,” a huge hit at San Sebastián, “Empathy” and “Hal & Harper.”

Amanda Seyfried will present “Long Bright River,” while Pamela Adlon is set to deliver a masterclass. Adlon will also preside over the International Competition jury.

Denmark’s “Generations” will celebrate its world premiere at the fest, as well as “Kabul,” “The Deal” and “The German.”

In the International Panorama Competition, Trine Dyrholm will introduce “The Danish Woman.” She’ll be joined by other world premieres “A Life’s Worth,” “Raul Seixas: Let Me Sing” and “Reunion”. “Requiem for Selina,” “At the End of the Night,” “Celeste,” “Family Matters” and “Putain” will also be shown, as well as “What it Feels Like for a Girl.”

Among other highlights, “Carême” (Apple TV+) starring Jérémie Rénier and Lyna Khoudri, will open the festival. “Hpi” will close it,...

Paris-based Pulsar Content has boarded “The Velazquez Mystery,” narrated by Cannes and Venice best actor winner Vincent Lindon, which also marks the directorial debut of renowned French producer Stéphane Sorlat.

The third part of a doc feature trilogy — following José Luis López Linares’ “Bosch: The Garden of Dreams” and his “Goya, Carriere and the Ghost of Buñuel” — “The Velazquez Mystery” explores multiple questions raised by the painter.

One is how Velázquez could be so admired by great painters — “the only great painter in history,” said Salvador Dalí — but remain so often on the margins of collective memory.

Quoting Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon and Dalí, “The Velazquez Mystery” plumbs his genius. “Velázquez was a double genius, from a technical point of view, but also how he changed the rules, putting himself inside the paintings and creating labyrinths of meaning,” Sorlat told Variety.

“Guided by the symbolic thread of water, a metaphor for movement and reflection,...

Isabel Peña y Sorogoyen firman el guion de esta original de Movistar Plus+. © Movistar Plus+

Ya está en marcha el rodaje de El ser querido, una película dirigida por Rodrigo Sorogoyen con guion del propio Sorogoyen e Isabel Peña. Esta producción original de Movistar Plus+ se rodará a lo largo de diez semanas en localizaciones de Fuerteventura y Madrid, para luego estrenarse en cines de la mano de A Contracorriente Films, antes de aterrizar en la plataforma.

En El ser querido un prestigioso director de cine y su hija, una actriz sin éxito, ruedan juntos una película tras años de distanciamiento y un pasado difícil del que ninguno de los dos ha querido hablar.

La película está encabezada por Javier Bardem (Dune: Parte dos) y Victoria Luengo (Reina roja). Completan el reparto Raúl Arévalo (El caso asunta), Marina Foïs (As Bestas), Mourad Ouani (Nos vemos en otra vida), Raúl Prieto...

Javier Bardem’s upcoming Spanish-language drama “El Ser Querido” from multiple Goya Award-winning writer-director Rodrigo Sorogoyen is heading to the EFM with the English title “The Beloved,” with Goodfellas launching the project to buyers.

The film — also starring Victoria Luengo (“The Room Next Door”) — is a drama about an acclaimed film director and his daughter, a struggling actress. After years of estrangement, they make a movie together, and are forced to confront a troubled past neither of them has wanted to face. Sorogoyen wrote the screenplay.

The film is being produced by Sorogoyen’s Madrid production label Caballo Films, with Movistar Plus+ and Le Pacte co-producing. The latter will release the movie in France.

Bardem earned a Golden Globe nomination this year for his turn in Netflix’s limited series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez.” He was last seen in “Dune: Part Two” and Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” live-action remake,...

Exclusive: Goodfellas has unveiled one of its biggest European Film Market slates ever featuring upcoming films by Cristian Mungiu, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Saeed Roustaee, Claire Denis, Mario Martone and Raoul Peck.

The company is also handling a trio of Berlin Film Festival titles: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Golden Bear contender The Ice Tower with Marion Cotillard; Burhan Qurbani’s No Beast. So Fierce. in Berlinale Special; and a fresh acquisition, Bálint Dániel Sós’ Growing Down.

The latter film, which premieres in the new competitive Perspectives section aimed at first films, revolves around a widowed father of two who is tested by fate when he becomes the only witness of a serious accident involving his stepdaughter caused by his youngest son.

Goodfellas will begin pre-sales on Romanian director Mungiu’s first English-language picture Fjord, with Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) and Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World...

Set in rural west Ireland, writer-director Christopher Andrews’s pastoral thriller Bring Them Down features little in the way of spectacular set pieces. Nor does the film hinge on a classic battle between a hero and a villain. Its genre bona bides are mostly established by its tightly wound plot and characters whose psychologies have been warped in the conjunction of patriarchal traditions and the pressures of capitalism.

Ostensibly, Bring Them Down follows Michael (Christopher Abbot), the taciturn scion of a wealthy family that has herded sheep for centuries. His father, Ray (Colm Meaney), though immobilized by bad knees, still exercises the authority of a biblical patriarch. Michael’s childhood girlfriend, Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone)—having left him some 20 years before the present action, in the fallout from his mother’s death in a car accident, for which he was responsible—is now married to the spiteful and debt-burdened alcoholic Gary...

Movistar Plus+, the Spanish pay-tv and SVoD service, is expanding its film production slate and has boarded Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s The Black Ball (La Bola Negra), set to shoot in the second half of 2025.

The Black Ball, inspired by an unfinished play by Federico García Lorca, will be a “queer vindication about three meen in three different moments of Spanish history: 1932, 1937 and 2017,” said Calvo and Ambrossi, best known as filmmaking duo Los Javis.

Los Javis’ outfit Suma Content is producing with Movistar Plus+.

Lorca was murdered at the start of the Spanish Civil War by rightwing military...

During a Movistar+ presentation at the historic Telefónica Building on Madrid’s Gran Via this afternoon, renowned writer-director-producer duo Los Javis – Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – shared early details about their next project, “La bola negra,” a multi-timelined feature about what it is and has meant to be a gay man in Spain throughout the last century.

A day after their series “La Mesías” won the Rose d’Or Award for best mini or limited series at Content Americas, Ambrossi and Calvo – known locally as Los Javis – revealed that they’re in the final stages of putting the project together and will begin shooting later this year. Abrossi and Calvo are writing, directing, and co-producing the feature through their label Suma Content, which is teaming with Movistar+, its production and distribution partner, on “La Mesías.”

“La bola negra” is a “queer revisitation of a part of the history of our country,...

Latido Films, which previously bet on Latin arthouse cinema in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts” and Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s breakout, “Lullaby,” have acquired international sales rights to Colombian filmmaker Gala del Sol’s debut feature, “Rains Over Babel” (“Llueve sobre Babel”), ahead of its Sundance world premiere and European bow at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Latido will also celebrate at Rotterdam the international premiere of “The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortes,” one of the standout first features at last September’s San Sebastian Festival, marking the feature debut as a director of Antón Álvarez, better known as C. Tangana, his stage name as a singer-songwriter.

Latido’s Juan Torres brokered the deal on “Rains Over Babel” and told Variety they found the title “a modern, entertaining, fun project that also has a lot of depth and scope in its ideas.” Adding, “It’s a powerful cinematic experience...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

Last year I used this space to speak about the ongoing genocide occurring in Gaza and this year, that genocide is still going on. I spoke about how the filmmakers who were most important were the ones depicting the genocide. Many of those filmmakers have passed away and the reason we’re seeing less and less news from Gaza is because the documentarians disseminating the truth through their cameras have been made as legitimate targets by Israel and the United States. Palestinian filmmakers are still making films however, and many of them are vital to watch and save for the memory they preserve. You can search the phrase “Palestinian Film Archive” on Twitter to find threads and documentation listing all of these.

10. Cuckoo (Tilman Singer)

Tilman Singer...

Latido Films, the sales company on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts” and “The Platform,” has unveiled a slew of over 30 sales deals on a wide-ranging slate of titles, led by a U.S. pick-up on “All the Names of God,” a bouquet of transactions on “Aire,” the Dominican Republic’s Oscar entry, and an HBO regional licensing deal on “Saturn Return,” Spain’s Academy Award submission.

The deals are announced as Latido hits the American Film Market with Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s “Re-Creation,” one of its hottest tickets, and Toronto Platform winner “They Will Be Dust,” which has clinched an early sale with Taiwan’s Sky Digi, with others in the offing.

“We have great hopes for ‘Re-Creation,’ Jim Sheridan’s trial film. He has been incredibly committed to tell this story, who I think is probably one of his more personal since ‘In the Name of the Father,...

Una década en la vida de una pareja contada en 10 episodios centrados en un único momento: el cambio de año. © Movistar Plus+

Ya se ha publicado el primer tráiler de la serie original de Movistar Plus+ Los años nuevos, de Rodrigo Sorogoyen, que tuvo su estreno mundial en la Sección Oficial fuera de concurso, dentro de la categoría Ficción, del Festival Internacional de Cine de Venecia.

Los años nuevos, compuesta por dos partes de cinco episodios cada una, sigue a Ana, que cumple 30 años el día de Año Nuevo con la vida aún por resolver: vive en un piso compartido, no le gusta su trabajo, cambia a menudo de amigos… Óscar cumple 30 años el día de Nochevieja con su vida casi resuelta: médico vocacional, amigos fieles, y una relación que va y viene. La noche en la que ambos cumplen los 30, se conocen, se enamoran, y comienzan una relación cuyas...

The Realm Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival The Candidate, Amazon Prime, streaming from today

Political thrillers don't come much better packaged than this one from Rodrigo Sorogoyen. Spanish A-lister Antonio de la Torre plays Manuel López-Vidal - a corrupt politico whose chickens are about to come home to roost. Beginning with a gripping tracking shot that introduces us to the character as he walks through a restaurant with an intensity that continues through the film. A leaked tape is about to spell trouble for Manuel, just as his big break appears to be coming, setting in motion an intricate game that sees him try to outwit both his party and the law. Hinging on de la Torre's magnetic central performance, which leaves us compromised too, almost wishing for the bad guy to win the day.

The Smallest Show On Earth, 11am, Film4, Monday, November 4

Cinephiles with a yen...

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,...