News

Spanish production company Jur Jur Productions has boarded as a co-producer of “Punku,” the latest film from Peruvian director J.D. Fernández Molero, which world premieres in the Forum section of this year’s 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

Punku, which means “gateway” in Quechua, follows the journey of two unlikely companions—Meshia, a Matsigenka Indigenous teenager, and Ivan, a young boy who was presumed dead until she discovers him living in the Peruvian Amazon’s dense jungle. Ivan is slowly losing his sight, and Meshia takes it upon herself to lead him on a harrowing journey upriver toward the city of Quillabamba for life-saving surgery. The film artfully blends fantasy with the stark reality of trauma and survival, weaving a narrative that touches on themes of identity, belonging, and violence in a perilous world.

Variety has been given access to the film’s trailer, which can be seen below.

Gabi Șarga and Cătălin Rotaru’s Where Elephants Go will world premiere at the second edition of Smart7, a travelling competition across seven European film festivals.

The titles, one from each festival’s respective country, will screen together at Transilvania International Film Festival; Poland’s New Horizons; Portugal’s IndieLisboa; Greece’s Thessaloniki; Spain’s Filmadrid; Iceland’s Reykjavik; and Lithuania’s Vilnius Iff Kino Pavasaris.

Where Elephants Go is the debut feature from Romanian duo Șarga and Rotaru, whose short film 4:15. The End Of The World screened in competition at Cannes 2016 and won the jury prize. It is...

Malaga — Dark Star Pictures, the L..A.-based distribution company, has secured North America distribution rights to “On the Go,” which showcases the acting talents of “Elite’s” Omar Ayuso, here playing a Grindr addict with vengeance in his heart.

Celebrating its world premiere at last August’s Locarno Film Festival, “On the Go” was acquired for world sales in the run-up to the Swiss festival by Paris-based MPM Premium.

A road movie through an Andalusia of music, dance, sex and sensuality, “On the Go” has steadily chalked up sales since then, closing France (Outplay), Germany, Switzerland, Austria (Salzgeber), Taiwan (Cineplex) and now the U.S. and Canada (Dark Star Pictures).

“We’re excited to work again with Dark Star Pictures, a distributor focused on bringing unique and cutting-edge genre movies to North America. They are a natural partner for ‘On the Go,’ a Spanish comedy that is as hilarious as it is thoughtful,...

Deportation drama The Antique is the newest addition to MPM Premium’s 2024 line-up that also includes Brazilian environmental drama Betania, Saudi Arabian thriller Mandoob, Spanish LGBTQ+ comedy On The Go, horror The Coffee Table, plus Tunisian trauma-centred story Red Path.

Georgian filmmaker Rusudan Glurjidze’s The Antique is set in 2006 amidst the unlawful deportation of thousands of Georgians from Russia. It stars 2024 European Shooting Star actress Salome Demuria alongside Sergey Dreyden and Vladimir Vlovichenkov and is produced by Georgia’s Cinetech. The film is currently in post and expected to premiere later in the year.

The Paris-based seller has also...

Buenos Aires — Paris-based sales agency MPM Premium has has closed its second major territory deal on “On the Go,” toplining “Elite” star Omar Ayuso in an Andalusia-set road movie with lashings of sun, sex and sensuality.

Directed by Maria Gisèle Royo and Julia de Castro, and one of Spain’s most memorable feature debuts, “On the Go” has been licensed to Outplay Films which plans a theatrical release in Sumer 2024 after the film’s French premiere in premiere in Chéries Chéris.

MPM Premium has already clinched its first major sales, selling to Salzgeber for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and to Cineplex for Taiwan. Spain, the U.K. and U.S are in advanced talks, said Quentin Worthington, MPM Premium head of sales and acquisitions.

The deal in one of Europe’s key arthouse and queer cinema markets marks further recognition for an immersive movie in which Milagros (De Castro), set on motherhood but unemployed,...

Two movies which come in on immigration from vastly different angles – Laura Ferrés’ “The Permanent Picture” and Ken Loach’s “The Old Oak” – won big Saturday night at Spain’s Valladolid Festival, walking off with its main competition Golden Spike and the Spanish event’s best actor (Dave Turner) and Audience Award plaudits respectively.

The prize ceremony also saw Charlotte Rampling, star of closing film “Juniper” from Matthew J. Saville, accept an enthusiastically applauded Honorific Spike for her career achievement.

Though decided upon by independent juries, Valladolid’s prizes say much about the new-fit festival after a first-year reboot by new director José Luis Cienfuegos, previously a Gijón and Seville fest head.

Under directors Fernando Lara (1984-2004), Juan Carlos Frugone (2005-08) and Javier Angulo (2009-2022), Valladolid has consolidated as one of Spain’s biggest festivals, after San Sebastián. and a bastion of auteurist, arthouse independent cinema. Few figures in Europe...

Iranian drama film “Empty Nets” was Monday named winner of the Aff Feature Fiction Award at the Adelaide Film Festival. Directed by Behrooz Karamizade, it collected an A$10,000 cash prize.

The festival’s competition section is one of the oldest in Australia and seeks to reward bold filmmaking. This year’s competition mostly comprised films by directors making their feature debuts. They included “Blaga’s Lessons,” from Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev; “Embryo Larva Butterfly,” by Greek-Cypriot writer-director Kyros Papavassiliou; “On The Go,” from directors Julia de Castro and Maria Gisele Royo; “Sahela,” directed by Australia’s Raghuvir Joshi; and “You’ll Never Find Me,” from Adelaide-based duo Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell.

“’Empty Nets’ is a searing portrait of the bleak socioeconomic reality for young people without family money in contemporary Iran, distinguished by atmospheric visuals, an evocative sense of place, stirring lead performances and a powerful grasp of the sea as...

“All of Us Strangers,” Andrew Haigh, U.K., U.S.)

Setting a high benchmark for Valladolid’s main competition, “a curious kind of ghost story, at once incredibly tender and profoundly devastating as it slowly reveals its secrets,” Variety wrote in its review. Written and directed by Haigh. behind an impressive body of work taking in “Weekend,” “45 Years” and HBO series “Looking.”

“Andrea’s Love,” (“El amor de Andrea,” Manuel Martín Cuenca, Spain)

Sold by Film Factory, the latest from the always interesting Martín Cuenca about Andrea, 15, attempting to reconnect with her estranged father. “A title opening up a new stage in Martín Cuenca’s career, his simplest, most tender and sincere of works,” Valladolid Festival notes run.

“Gasoline Rainbow,” (Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross, U.S.)

Produced by Mubi and sold by The Match Factory, the Venice Horizons world premiere follows five teens who pile into a van...

The 68th edition will screen a mix of new Spanish films and 2023 favourites and host an expanded industry programme.

The 68th edition of the Seminci, the Valladolid International Film Week opens this weekend (October 21) with a screening of The Movie Teller, directed by Lone Scherfig, starring Bérénice Béjo, Antonio de la Torre and Daniel Brühl and written by Walter Salles, Isabel Coixet and Rafa Russo.

For what is a vital launchpad into the Spanish market, new festival director José Luis Cienfuegos has programmed a series of international festival favourites from 2023 alongside new films by Spanish directors Antonio Méndez Esparza and...

Stars Acting Up At Busan

Oscar-winning Korean actor Youn Yuh-jung will headline the Actors’ House section of the upcoming Busan International Film Festival, it was announced on Thursday.

Introduced in 2021, Actors’ House is a special series that connects audiences and film enthusiasts with iconic actors from the current generation through its in-depth discussions. “There’s much anticipation to hear her words of wisdom, as she’s known for her insightful observations,” said the festival.

Others this year include: Han Hyo-joo, Song Joong-ki and Korean-American actor and author John Cho. Han is known for performances in 2015’s “The Beauty Inside,” “W” (2016), “Happiness (2021), and last year’s “The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure.” She will be in Busan with Netflix-backed “Believer 2” and recently appeared in the Disney+ original series, “Moving.”

Song, who hosted the 2021 Busan festival’s opening ceremony, was recently seen in “Hopeless,” one of the handful of Korean films in Cannes this year.

“On the Go,” a spirited, freewheeling road movie capturing the first lead performance in a movie of ‘Elite’ star Omar Ayuso, has clinched its first major sales, selling to Salzgeber for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and to Cineplex for Taiwan.

Paris-based MPM Premium picked up world sales rights to “On the Go” in the run-up to the Locarno Festival where it world premiered in its Filmmakers of the Present section.

The feature debut of directors Maria Gisèle Royo and Julia de Castro, “On the Go” is set against a contemporary Andalusia of music, dance, sex and sensuality against which Ayuso playing a role far from his Elite persona as a Grindr addict with vengeance in his heart, Ayuso is caught in opening scenes setting fire to a night club before being collected Milagros (De Castro), set on motherhood but unemployed and arriving in Seville in her father’s ’67 Corvair to...

The Indonesians have a concept called nongkrong. To nongkrong is to meet and talk, preferably in large groups, and about nothing in particular. I first came across it last summer on a trip to Documenta, a contemporary art fair that’s taken place since 1955 in Kassel, in Germany, but only once every 5 years. The festival’s new curators were ruangrupa from Indonesia, a collective that almost never produces physical works, instead creating spaces for meetings and discussions: a kind of nongkrong as installation. Every room that you walked into at Documenta was full of nongkrong: bits and bobs on the floor, idea bubbles, and word maps on the walls, artist statements that ran a country mile. The festival estimated that the culminated work last year was the product of no less that 1,500 participants. The results were lively and cacophonous. I felt next to nothing.

I couldn’t help but briefly...

In the run-up to Locarno, Paris-based MPM Premium has swooped on world sales rights to “On the Go,” a showcase of the acting talents of “Elite’s” Omar Ayuso, Omar in Netflix mega-hit “Elite,” playing in “On the Go” a Grindr addict with vengeance in his heart.

Set to world premiere in Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente, “On the Go” also has a first trailer, shared in exclusivity with Variety.

The trailer captures much of the spirit of the freewheeling road movie through an Andalusia of music, dance, sex and sensuality –though none of the film’s nudity – of a feature, written-directed by Maria Gisèle Royo and Julia de Castro, which revisits from a female perspective an extraordinary Andalusian feature, 1982’s “Corridas de Alegría.”

From the mid-70s, when Spain secured a democratic government after 40 years of rule by the arcane ultra-conservative Francisco Franco, Spain came out of the convent,...

Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World (Radu Jude).The lineup for the 76th edition of the festival has been announced, including new films by Eduardo Williams, Leonor Teles, Lav Diaz, Radu Jude, and others.Concorso INTERNAZIONALEAnimal (Sofia Exarchou)Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh)Essential Truths of the Lake (Lav Diaz)Home (Leonor Teles)The Human Surge 3 (Eduardo Williams)The Invisible Fight (Rainer Sarnet)Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World (Radu Jude)Lousy Carter (Bob Byington)Manga D’Terra (Basil Da Cunha)Nuit Obscure – Au Revoir Ici, N’Importe Où (Sylvain George)Patagonia (Simone Bozzelli)The Permanent Picture (Laura Ferrés)Rossosperanza (Annarita Zambrano)Stepne (Maryna Vroda)Sweet Dreams (Ena Sendijarević)The Vanishing Soldier (Dani Rosenberg)Yannick (Quentin Dupieux)Excursion (Una Gunjak).Concorso Cineasti Del PRESENTECamping du Lac (Eléonore Saintagnan)Ein Schöner Ort (Katharina Huber)Excursion (Una Gunjak)Family Portrait (Lucy Kerr)Dreaming...

A stellar precursor to the busy fall film festival season, Locarno Film Festival annually premieres some of the year’s most exciting cinema and 2023 looks to be no different. Taking place from August 2-12 in the Swiss town, the festival has now unveiled its lineup for the 76th edition. Highlights include Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge 3 (brilliantly forgoing a second film), Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World, Lav Diaz’s Essential Truths of the Lake, Sylvain George’s Nuit Obscure – Au Revoir Ici, N’Importe Où, and Quentin Dupieux’s Yannick.

Speaking to its main section, Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, said, “From Quentin Dupieux and his edgy surrealism to Lav Diaz. From the sarcastic humor of Radu Jude to the night poetry of Sylvain Georges. From the mad inventions of Rainer Sarnet to the abstract psychedelia of Eduardo Williams.

International competition features 16 world premieres.

The Locarno Film Festival (August 2-12) has revealed the line-up for its 76th edition, which includes the world premiere of Romanian director Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World.

Locarno’s international competition will comprise 17 films, including 16 world premieres, which will vie for the coveted Golden Leopard awards.

Scroll down for full list of titles

These titles include Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World, his first feature since winning the Berlinale Golden Bear for Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn in...

The Locarno International Film Festival unveiled the full program for 2023 on Wednesday, with dozens of world premieres set to screen in the 76th edition of the Swiss festival.

Locarno’s main Piazza Grande section will include several of this season’s festival favorites, among them Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall from French director Justine Triet starring Sandra Hüller; Ken Loach’s latest (and possibly last) feature, The Old Oak; Noora Niasari’s Sundance audience award winner Shayda, featuring Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi; and Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s comedy Theater Camp, which won a special jury prize at Sundance. Other highlights include U.S. horror feature Falling Stars by directors Richard Karpala and Gabriel Bienczycki; Dammi from 71′ and White Boy Rick-helmer Yann Demange; and Magnetic Continent, the new nature documentary from March of the Penguins‘ filmmaker Luc Jacquet about the continent of Antarctica.

Spain’s Festival de Málaga, through its industry arm Mafiz (Málaga Festival Industry Zone), heads to the Cannes Marché du Film with five works-in-progress from burgeoning Andalusian talent.

“The Malaga Festival wants to support the completion of these works and make their international distribution viable,” commented Malaga head of industry, Annabelle Aramburu.

This year, as Cannes more broadly celebrates Spain, the event curates two titles that tackle its tumultuous history and one which takes audiences on an unconventional road trip questioning the biological clock alongside narratives that dissect the minutiae of new forms of co-existing and the baffling concept of destiny.

The second edition of Málaga Goes to Cannes takes place on Monday May 22.

“Alone In The Night,” (Guillermo Rojas)

A wry take on the eve of Feb. 23, 1981 when an attempted coup in Spain threatened its young democracy, profoundly changing the lives of the protagonists, an ensemble cast that includes...

International rights available on all projects at Buenos Aires showcase.

Seven titles with Spanish lead producers comprise the works in progress slate that is being presented under the auspices of Spanish Screenings on Tour at Ventana Sur, which kicked off on Monday in Buenos Aires.

Produced by Fábrica Naranja de Películas, Malandra Films and Germany’s Inselfilm Produktion, Paloma Zapata’s Finding La Singla is a documentary feature about the renowned flamenco dancer Antoñita Singla. Born deaf in the suburbs of Barcelona in 1948, Singla learned to dance without listening to music and used flamenco as a form of therapy.

Sultana...