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Javier Marco’s “Face to Face” (“A la cara”), the spin-off from a 2021 Goya winning short, was one of the big winners at this year’s RECLab in Tarragona, Spain which is celebrating its 10th anniversary by doing what it does best: Innovation, which questions many of the often set-in-stone conventions of festivals.

Also among winners at RECLab, part of the Rec – Tarragona Intl. Film Festival, were “Jone Batzuetan,” by Sara Fantova, a director on “This Is Not Sweden,” and “Woman Bites Dog,” from Armand Rovira (“Letters to Paul Morrissey”).

“L’homme Abissal o Phaeophytamón,” by Marina Wagner, an “experimental Gothic tale” as she puts it, won the Málaga Work in Progress Award.

Unveiled at RECLab in true post-production – without color-grading, nor soundwork nor digital effects – the feature “Face to Face” picks up but reworks the basic premise of Marco’s short: Pedro, middle-aged, unshaved, dowdily dressed, opens the door of his house to Lina,...

Less Is More (Lim), a European development scheme for limited-budget feature films has unveiled its selection of 16 projects, four of which are from Ukrainian writers and filmmakers.

The initiative is backed by the Media Programme of the European Union. The French national board (Cnc) has come on board to support this year’s special spotlight on Ukrainian projects, alongside the Terrarium, a platform for Ukrainian screenwriters.

The programs, which develops first, second and third feature projects, is organized by the Groupe Ouest, a film org created in 2006 in Brittany, in Northwest France, and headed by Antoine Le Bos and Charlotte Le Vallégant.

Commenting on the lineup, Le Bos said the “darkness of the geopolitical context of 2023 pushes us to redefine what films are made for.” “Our selection team has been pushed to look at all the projects received this autumn with new lenses,” Le Bos continued. He said “the nature...

“El agua,” (Elena López Riera)

A Directors’ Fortnight title, the feature debut of Locarno winning López Riera (“Los Que Desean”), a fantasy-laced village-set critique of gender violence. S.A. Elle Driver

“Alcarràs,” (Carla Simón)

The 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner, Simón’s follow-up to “Summer 1993” and the flagship title for Catalonia and Spain’s newest filmmaking generation. S.A. MK2 Films

“Amazing Elisa,” (Sádrac González-Perellón)

The next from 2017 BiFan Grand Jury Prize winner González-Perellón (“Black Hollow Cage”), once more mixing fantasy and family dynamics as Elisa, 12, plans revenge after her mother’s tragic death. S.A. Filmax

“The Beasts,” (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)

One of 2022’s most awaited Spanish titles, playing Cannes Premiere, a Galicia-set thriller from Oscar-nominee Sorogoyen (“Mother”), produced by Arcadia, Caballo Films and Le Pacte. S.A. Latido Films

“The Communion Girl,” (Víctor García)

A revenge thriller involving an urban legend about a girl in a communion dress. S.

From Berlin Golden Bear winner ‘Alcarrás’ to Cannes Competition title ‘Pacifiction,’ these projects will represent Catalonia at Cannes.

Alcarràs

Director: Carla Simón

The 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner, a family farm drama marking the flagship title for Catalonia’s newest generation of cineastes.

Sales: MK2 Films

Amazing Elisa

Director: Sadrac González-Perellón

The next from 2017 BiFan Grand Jury Prize winner González- Perellón (“Black Hollow Cage”), once more mixing fantasy and family dynamics as Elisa, 12, seeks revenge after her mother’s tragic death. La Charito Films produces.

Sales: Filmax

The Beasts

Director: Rodrigo Sorogoyen

One of 2022’s most awaited Spanish titles, selected for Cannes Premiere, a Galicia-set thriller from Oscar-nominee Sorogoyen (“Mother”), produced by Arcadia, Caballo Films and Le Pacte.

Sales: Latido Films

The Communion Girl

Director: Víctor García

Film Factory’s genre play for Cannes: A revenge thriller drawing on an urban legend about a girl in a communion dress.

Sales: Film...

Two hotly-favored competition frontrunners, Spain’s motherhood-focused “Lullaby” and “Utama,” shot on an awe-inspiring Bolivian Altiplano, swept the board at a historic, 25th Málaga Film Festival which said a lot about the current state of the Spanish film industry.

Running March 18-26, the Festival proved a vibrant affair, galvanised by renewed interest in the Spanish cinema after a buoyant reception for its major movies at Berlin, as well as the joy of proving the first time many industry attendees had seen each other in person in two years and backing from Spain’s Avs Hub plan for a vastly larger industry presence.

In Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s “Lullaby,” coming after Sundance hit “Piggy” and Carla Simón’s Berlin Golden Bear triumph “Alcarrás,” Spain would look to have a third art pic breakout in just the first three months of 2022, all driven by a young generation of women cineastes, directors and producers.

Tenerife-based Bendita Film Sales has taken international sales rights to Nely Reguera’s sophomore outing, drama “La voluntaria” (“The Volunteer”), toplining “Broken Embraces,” “Perfect Life” and Piggy” star Carmen Machi, one of the biggest marquee draws in Spain.

World premiering in main competition at this year’s Malaga Festival, “La voluntaria” marks Reguera’s follow-up to her well-received feature 2016 debut, the Bárbara Lennie-starrer “María (And the Others),” which won the best Ibero-American film prize at the Miami Film Festival and earned new director and lead actress nominations at the Spanish Academy Goya Awards.

Barcelona-born Reguera forms part of the new generation of exciting young female Catalan auteurs, alongside Carla Simón (“Alcarràs”), Belén Funes (“The Daughter of the Thief”), Neus Ballús (“The Odd-Job Men”) and Meritxell Colell (“Facing the Wind”).

A Spain-Greece co-production, “La voluntaria” is produced by Adriá Monés at Fasten Films, Bteam Pictures’ Alex Lafuente and Maria Drandaki from Homemade Films.

Ecuador’s Ana María Barragán (“Alba”), Brazil’s Joâo Paulo Miranda (“Memory House”) and Spain’s Meritxell Colell (“Facing the Wind”) will put awaited new feature film projects through San Sebastián’s Ikusmira Berriak, one of Spain’s foremost development labs.

Also selected for 2022’s edition are a second reputed Latin American auteur, Argentina’s Maximiliano Schonfield (“Jesús López”) as well as Spain’s Irati Gorostidi (“In the Rain”) and a second Catalan filmmaker, Jaume Claret (“Ella y jo”).

As part of an eight-week residency, Ikusmira Berriak’s six directors will attend a Tabakalera tutorial Artist’s Space over March 14-April 24, and then return for September’s San Sebastian Festival.

Arguably the strongest lineup in Ikusmira Berriak history, next year’s selection rolls of a powerful and still building film-tv ecosystem in San Sebastian.

In the case of Ikusmira Beriak, this brings together the San Sebastian Festival, the most important...

Benjamín Mirguet’s “Alfredo Larón,” Niles Atallah’s “Celestial Twins” and Silvina Schnicer’s “The Cottage” feature among 16 projects to be presented at Ventana Sur’s 4th Proyecta co-production forum, a wide-ranging showcase of emerging auteurs and new talents to track from Latin America and Europe.

“Alfredo Larón,” for example, marks the feature debut of Mirguet, the editor of Carlos Reygadas’ “Battle in Heaven,” and also a former Cannes Directors’ Fortnight programmer. Its action takes in a 17-year-old Larón syndrome sufferer’s battle for legal compensation from the Ecuador government and, in a turn of fortune, his happy high-school days in Germany.

Atallah caught attention with “Lucia” at San Sebastián’s 2009 Films In Progress, but all the more for 2017 Rotterdam Tiger Award Special Mention winner “Rey,” edited, as it happens, by Mirguet. A vision of the delirious Orllie-Antoine de Tonnens, who proclaimed himself King of Patagonia in 1860, “Rey” was shot...

Fouth edition of co-production sidebar will run in-person and online.

In the run-up to the hybrid 13th edition of Ventana Sur that starts in Buenos Aires later this month, top brass have unveiled the 16 development titles selected for its Proyecta co-production sidebar organised with San Sebastian Film Festival.

Proyecta filmmakers pitch to producers, programmers and sales agents in search of partners to complete financing and international distribution on co-productions between Latin American and Europe.

The fourth edition of Proyecta will run in-person and online and comprises a pitching session by project representatives on November 30 in Buenos Aires followed on December...

Selected by Variety as a talent to track, Spain’s Jaione Camborda is developing her sophomore effort, “The Rye Horn,” a story that takes place in ‘70s Galicia. After a terrible event, midwife María is forced to become a fugitive and, to wrestle back her freedom, flee Galicia for Portugal along an old smugglers’ route.

Camborda attended Prague’s Famu film school and Munich’s University of Film and Television (Hff Munich). After several experimental shorts her feature debut “Arima” took a New Waves Award at the Seville European Fest in 2019.

“The Rye Horn” has been developed at two of Spain’s leading labs, San Sebastian’s Ikusmira Berriak and Madrid’s Ecam Incubator, and has participated at the TIFF Filmmaker Lab. The project is back by Galician pubcaster Tvg and the region’s Agency of Cultural Industries (Agadic). “The Rye Horn” is produced by Andrea Vázquez at Miramemira – the...

Nathalie Trafford’s Paraiso Production Diffusion and Jérôme Vidal’s Noodles from France and Roberto Butragueño’s Elamedia and Luis Miñarro’s Eddie Saeta from Spain have teamed to co-produce Javier Rebollo’s “Dans la chambre du Sultan.”

A multi-prized Spanish film director, Rebollo ­­won San Sebastian’s best director with “La mujer sin piano” (The Woman Without a Piano) and a Fipresci prize with “El muerto y ser feliz” (“The Dead Man and Being Happy”) at the festival’s 2009 and 2012 editions.

“Dans la chambre du Sultan” (Close to the Sultan) turns on Gabriel Veyre (pictured), the most gifted of Auguste and Louis Lumière’s camera operators who traveled to Morocco for three months in 1900, hired by the Sultan Moulay Abd el-Aziz to initiate him into the mysteries of cinema. He remained for his lifetime.

Starring Vincent Macaigne (Louis Garrel’s “Two Friends”), “Dans la chambre”’s cast will also...

Catalan auteur Carla Simón, a 2017 Berlinale Generation Kplus winner with “Summer 1993,” is preparing her third feature, “Romería,” which has been selected among 17 new feature projects to be offered at Rotterdam Film Festival’s CineMart co-production market, to be held Feb. 1-5.

“Romería” (the Spanish name for a popular pilgrimage) will be produced by María Zamora at Avalon, the producer of Simón’s “Summer 1993” and “Alcarràs.” Based in Madrid and founded by Stefan Schmitz, production-distribution outfit Avalon includes Zamora and Enrique Costa as partners.

Having previously participated at the TorinoFilmLab Next program, “Romería” follows Frida, a teenager whose parents died when she was only a child. Adopted by her maternal uncle, the girl loses contact with her father’s side of the family. Wanting to understand the reasons behind the absence of half her family, and more specifically in order to learn about her own past, Frida decides to...

Chicago – The Chicago International Film Festival was founded in 1965 by Michael Kutza, and is the longest running “competitive film festival” in North America. So with that in mind it’s time for the 56th festival to confer those awards.

And the fest will be doing it live on their YouTube Channel (click here) at 10am Central Time on Friday, October 23rd.

To prove that anything can happen at the Awards Ceremony (when we were allowed to present them in person and attend the event), in 2013 I was standing in the bar at the Ambassador East hotel when an older gentleman started filming me with a high end video camera. After engaging in a pleasant conversation, I saw him again at the actual awards presentations – receiving a Lifetime Achievement honor. That gentleman was Haskell Wexler, the Oscar winning cinematographer for films such as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “Bound for Glory,...

Palme d’Or winning producer Luis Miñarro (“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”) is set to direct his fifth feature, ”Impalpable” (a working title), produced by Miñarro’s label, Barcelona-based Eddie Saeta, one of Spain’s most prominent arthouse shingles.

Written by Miñarro, “Impalpable” follows a series of characters who take a bus to an unspecified destination. The situation becomes gradually

stranger as the bus make no stops. Nor can the passengers descend.

“Impalpable”‘s cast will include Naomi Kawase, Geraldine Chaplin and Spain’s Lola Dueñas (“The Sea Inside”) and Francesc Orella (“Julia’s Eyes”), among others.

By chance, though with foresight, ”I first thought of this project before the pandemic. It’s a homage to Luis Buñuel’s ‘The Exterminating Angel,’” Miñarro told Variety. Over three days and two nights, its characters get to know one another, as the audience enters the minds of main characters, unleashing...

Nuria Valls

Valls already has 14 producer or exec-producer credits, including Eugenio Mira’s “Grand Piano,” Fernando González Molina’s Spanish blockbuster “Palm Trees in the Snow,” and Dan Krauss’ “The Kill Team;” all alongside her partner Adrián Guerra at Nostromo. Her latest productions include Alex and David Pastor’s “The Occupant” and Molina’s “Offering to the Storm,” both acquired by Netflix. Valls will shortly resume shooting on “Los favoritos de Midas,” created by Mateo Gil, her first TV series. “I’d like to do exactly what we’ve done so far: Making all kinds of movies we’d like to watch, not only genre.”

Oriol MAYMÓ

Maymó participated in the production of Rodrigo Cortés’ “Buried,” Marcel Barrena’s “Little World” and Pau Freixas’ TV-series “The Red Band Society” among many other titles. Now based out of Corte y Confección, he has produced Leticia Dolera’s Canneseries winner “A Perfect...

Three or so years ago, a new generation of directors, many women, were beginning to break out in Catalonia. That was no flash in the pan.

Following on Nely Reguera’s “María (and Everybody Else)” and Carla Simón’s Berlinale Generation Kplus pic “Summer 1993,” first features by Diana Toucedo (“Thirty Souls”), Meritxell Colell (“Facing the Wind”), Neus Ballús (“The Plague”) and Celia Rico (“Journey to a Mother’s Room”) have set the film festival circuit alight, garnering bullish reviews and a slew of prizes. Many of these women are now on to their second or third features: Simón with “Alcarrás,” Ballús (“The Odd-Job Men”), Colell, Rico (“The Little Loves”), Pilar Palomero (“La maternal”) and Reguera (“The Grandson”), among others.

Now, women producers are taking center stage: Belén Sánchez at Un Capricho Producciones (Lucía Alemeny’s “The Innocence”), Patricia Franquesa at Gadea Films (Laura Herrero’s “La Mami”) are succeeding. Many...

Chilean producers to track, who will be forming part of the Berlinale’s 2020 Country in Focus dedicated to Chile. Five are well-known, another five on the rise :

Up-and-coming

María José Díaz

Dos Be Producciones

An executive producer and investigative journalist for TV series and doc-features, Diaz is an executive producer at Dos Be Prods. and founder of Galgo Storytelling, a transmedia content producer. Projects in development: Doc “Haganse la Luz,” Ignacia Merino and Isabel Reyes’ debuts, and docu series “Nepen” about Chile’s indigenous Mapuches.

Yeniffer Fasciani

Niebla Producciones

A 2015 Berlinale Talents participant, Fasciani is a partner/co-founder of Niebla Prods. In 2016 she produced TV series “Martin, Man and Legend” for La Santé Films and was executive director of Dci, a Chilean film distributor. Upcoming projects: Carola Quezada’s “Perros sin Cola,” Chilean-Japanese co-production “Green Grass” by Ignacio Ruiz, and pregnant boxer drama “A La Deriva.”

Cynthia García

Cyan Prods

Founder of Cyan Prods.

The latest effort by Portuguese maestro Pedro Costa continues raking in the awards, having scooped the top prize at the Spanish gathering, where other European films also excelled. After having scooped the Golden Leopard at the most recent Locarno Film Festival and racked up further wins at other more recent festivals, such as France’s La-Roche-sur-Yon, the latest (and inimitable) work by outstanding Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, Vitalina Varela, has come out on top at the 57th Gijón International Film Festival. The jury, made up of directors Andrés Duque and Meritxell Colell, director of the Chicago Film Festival Mimi Plauché, distributor Christophe Mercier and musician Juan Pedro Martín “Pucho”, the frontman of the band Vetusta Morla, handed the Principality of Asturias Award for Best Feature in the Official Section to this new instalment in the Portuguese helmer’s cinematic world, an impressive chiaroscuro about mourning and despair in the Cape Verdean immigrant.

Two works-in-progress, Transoceánicas and La calle del agua, were singled out for commendation and support at the industry section of the Gijón International Film Festival. Back for a third year, Ficx Industry Days, the industry section of the Gijón International Film Festival, launched a new edition of its Push Play Work-in-Progress Session, culminating yesterday with an awards ceremony. Two projects were hand-picked by the jury, made up of Ana David, programme director at IndieLisboa and the Berlin International Film Festival; Leo Soesanto, short film selection coordinator at Cannes Critics’ Week and programme director of the Iffr; and Georgia Mouton-Lorenzo, head of sales and festivals at Stray Dogs. The top prize, the Dcp Deluxe - Push Play Work-in-Progress Award went to Transoceánicas, a joint project by Meritxell Colell and Lucía Vassallo. The film is based on letters between the two directors (Collel...

San Sebastian — Fasten Films will produce “El Nieto” (‘The Grandson’), Nely Reguera’s sophomore outing. Greece’s Homemade Films and Spain’s producer-distributor Bteam will co-produce.

A Barcelona-based company founded by Adrián Monés, formerly a producer at Filmax), Fasten Films is the company that has co-produced Emmy winner Justin Webster’s non-fiction series “The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy,” which had its world premiere on Monday, playing San Sebastian’s Zabaltegi showcase.

Reguera is currently co-directing— alongside Inés de León— Netflix original TV series “Valeria.”

Premiered at San Sebastian film festival in 2016, Reguera’s dramedy debut “Maria (And The Others)” garnered plaudits from reviewers and audiences. The feature snagged best film at Miami’s HBO Ibero-American Competition among other international prizes.

Alongside further female directors like Carla Simón (“Summer 1993”), Belén Funes (“The Daughter of the Thief”), Celia Rico (“Journey Around a Mother’s Room”), Laura Ferrés (“The Desinherited...

San Sebastian — Paris-based MK2 has boarded “Alcarràs,” the second feature film of Catalan auteur Carla Simón (“Summer 1993”), a leading member of a bright new generation of lauded and laurelled Catalan women directors including Neus Ballús, Belén Funes, Meritxell Colell, among others.

Currently in development, “Alcarràs” will be produced by Madrid-based production-distribution outfit Avalon– the Spanish distributors of Ruben Östlund’s “The Square,” Robin Campillo’s “120 Beats Per Minute,” and producers of “Summer 1993″ and Carlos Marques-Marcet’s “The Days to Come,” at this year’s San Sebastian Festival in its Made in Spain showcase.

Simón’s autobiographical debut “Summer 1993” snagged the Best First Film Award and the Generation Kplus Grand Prix at Berlin in 2017. The feature was Spain’s 2018 Oscars race entry, nominated for the Efa Discovery Award and won three Goyas including best new director. Carla Simón also received the Women in Motion Emerging Talent Award in Cannes in 2018.

Inspired by her own adoptive family,...

Laureled abroad and lauded at home, a young generation of women Catalan filmmakers started breaking through two years ago, led by Carla Simon’s 2017 Berlin first-feature winner “Summer 93.” Since then a bevy of female directors have emerged, making intimate character-driven dramas rich in observational psychological detail, some drawn from personal experience.

The ranks of women Catalan helmers have swelled substantially with, in various states of production, Clara Roquet’s “Libertad,” Belén Funes’ “A Thief’s Daughter,” Ángeles Hernández ’s “Isaac,” Lucía Alemany’s “Innocence” and Pilar Palomero’s “Girls.”

“It’s remarkable the impact that so-called small films have had on festival circuits,” says Roquet, whose “Libertad” won the Arte Kino Intl. Prize at San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum in September.

Many, like Simón, whose “Alcarrás” was a Berlinale Co-Production Market winner in February, are onto their second or even third feature.

Women are exploring new terrain, in...

Laureled abroad and lauded at home, a young generation of women Catalan filmmakers started breaking through two years ago, led by Carla Simon’s 2017 Berlin first-feature winner “Summer 93.” Since then a bevy of female directors have emerged, making intimate character-driven dramas rich in observational psychological detail, some drawn from personal experience.

The ranks of women Catalan helmers have swelled substantially with, in various states of production, Clara Roquet’s “Libertad,” Belén Funes’ “A Thief’s Daughter,” Ángeles Hernández’s “Isaac,” Lucía Alemany’s “Innocence” and Pilar Palomero’s “Girls.”

“It’s remarkable the impact that so-called small films have had on festival circuits,” says Roquet, whose “Libertad” won the Arte Kino Intl. Prize at San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum in September.

Many, like Simón, whose “Alcarrás” was a Berlinale Co-Production Market winner in February, are onto their second or even third feature.

Women are exploring new terrain, in...

Total of 37 feature film projects headed to Berlin.

The Berlin International Film Festival’s annual co-production market has unveiled the 37 feature film projects that will form this year’s selection.

There are 22 projects taking part in the Official Selection, including new films from Boo Junfeng, whose The Apprentice premiered at Cannes in 2016, and Uberto Pasolini, whose credits as a director include Still Life and Machan, and as a producer include The Full Monty.

Also attending with a new project is Carla Simón, the director of Summer 1993, which was a hit at the Berlinale in 2017, and brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser,...

Films from Nsu German History X director Christian Schwochow, BeTipul star Shira Geffen, 7 Days in Havana director Santiago Mitre and The Full Monty producer Uberto Pasolini are among the titles set for this year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market.

The co-pro market, which will see 600 international producers and financiers to come together to explore new partnerships, will host 37 feature film projects. Notably, 20 female filmmaker, 49% of selected titles, are represented.

Schwochow is hosting Je Suis Karl, which is produced by Germany’s Pandora Film Produktion; Geffen has A Responsible Adult, a family drama set against the backdrop of Israel’s mythical Masada plateau with Israel’s Marker Films; Mitre is shopping Petite Fleur from France’s Maneki Films and Argentina’s La Uniòn de los Rìos, and Pasolini is directing Nowhere Special from UK’s Red Wave Films.

The 20 female filmmakers include Marcela Said from Chile, Elina Psykou from Greece, Júlia Murat from Brazil,...

Aleksandra Terpinska’s “Other People” and Peter Dourountzis’s “Rascal” won the inaugural Arte Kino International Prize at the 10th edition of Les Arcs Film Festival’s Co-Production Village.

The award was given by Remi Burah, who runs Arte France Cinéma and launched in 2016 ArteKino Festival, a European online festival in partnership with the digital service Festival Scope. Each “Other People” and “Rascal” will receive 2000 Euros.

Mixing comedy, drama and musical, “Other People” tells the story of a man who lives with his mum and teenage sister who starts a romance with Iwona, a woman in her early 40’s who cannot cope with her marriage. “Other People” was selected as part of this year’s focus on Poland. Terpinska’s last short “The Best Fireworks Ever” premiered at Cannes’s Critics’ Week and won two awards.

Meanwhile, “Rascal” in a French-language thriller following a charming young man who arrives in...

Marylise Dumont’s “Black Dog,” Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen’s “Ashes and Snow” and “Each of Us” are among the 20 projects which will be pitched at the 10th edition of Les Arcs Film Festival’s Co-Production Village.

The Co-Production Village will run alongside the festival which will be presided by Ruben Ostlund, the Swedish helmer of Palme d’Or-winning and Oscar-nominated “The Square,” and will open on Dec. 15 with Louis Garrel’s “A Faithful Man.” The movie will compete along with nine films selected by Frederic Boyer, the artistic director of both Les Arcs and Tribeca festivals.

Besides Ostlund, a flurry of high-profile European filmmakers, industry figures and talent are expected to attend the festival, notably Laetitia Casta (“A Faitful Man”), Alex Lutz (“Guy”), Lukas Dhont (“Girl”), Charlotte Le Bon (“The Promise”), Jeremie Renier (“Double Lover”), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (“Les estivants”), Romain Duris (“Heartbreaker”), Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent!), and Thomas Vinterberg...

Collaboration with San Sebastian Film Festival to foster co-productions with Latin America.

Filmmakers let fly with their pitches on Tuesday (10) at the inaugural Proyecta session organised by Ventana Sur and San Sebastian Film Festival to foster co-productions with Latin America.

Among those under the spotlight are The Jungle, a Swiss project that director Matthias Huser explained was a 1970s-set family drama that morphs via a “feverish” storytelling tone into an experimental film.

The film centres on Sheila, who returns to her childhood home where her dying father tries to convince her to continue his life’s work and protect a patch of jungle.

20 films selected for Co-Production Village, including 11 first features.

The Les Arcs Film Festival, celebrating its 10th year in 2018, has unveiled its selection of co-production projects for this year’s Industry Village.

Running December 15-18, the event is a financing platform for feature films in development across Europe.

This year, 20 projects have been selected, including a new film from Carla Simon, whose Summer 93 won best first feature at this year’s Berlinale. Her new project Each Of Us is being co-directed with Anne Zohra Berrached and Meritxell Colell and produced by Spain’s Alhena Production.

Also at the event is Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen...

San Sebastian — Chile’s Manufactura de Películas is teaming with Spain’s Polar Star Films, Argentina’s Pensilvania and France’s Paraiso for Meritxell Colell’s sophomore feature “Duo,” a lyrical, dancing road-movie set in Latin America.

Project will be presented at the Co-production Forum of the San Sebastian International Film Festival, which begins today Sunday.

After 24 years sharing the stage and an emotional link, in “Duo” Mónica (49) and Colate (61), a pair of dancers try to find the meaning or a new direction for their relationship during the artistic tour that they always hoped to take. The van trip through the deserted landscapes bordering Argentina, Chile and Bolivia will test their relationship, while the couple offer contemporary dancing shows at rural schools, forgotten theaters and remote village squares.

“In the Andean culture, everything is explained from the duality –there is no man without woman, there is no moon without sun,...

With its 66th edition running Sept. 21-29, San Sebastian is the highest-profile festival in the Spanish-speaking world. Here are 10 things to watch for at this year’s installment.

Pursuing Parity

Could the tide be turning? Following Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo and Venice, of European events, San Sebastian will sign a gender-parity charter at this year’s event. More eye-catching, San Sebastian joins a growing bevy of events — Venice Days and Mexico’s Morelia, for example — in having at least one major section with more titles directed by women than men. In San Sebastian’s case, it is the 2018 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum. That makes sense: Screening finished films, festivals depend on women’s movies getting made, and highlighting projects can further that goal. “We support ways for more women’s films to get made,” says San Sebastian director José Luis Rebordinos.

Stars

Danny DeVito, Judi Dench and Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose “Shoplifters...

Madrid – Spain’s San Sebastian Festival is expected to sign a pledge on gender parity Sunday, following in the footsteps of the Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo and Venice film fests.

San Sebastian Festival director José Luis Rebordinos is to sign the Charter for Parity and Inclusion of Women in Cinema in the company of Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo; the minister of culture and sport, José Guirao; the president of the festival’s board of directors and mayor of San Sebastian, Eneko Goia; and the president of Spain’s Assn. of Women Cineastes (Cima), Cristina Andreu. Cima vice-president Virginia Yagüe will host the ceremony.

The real news would have been if San Sebastian hadn’t signed. Like Cannes and Venice chiefs Thierry Fremaux and Alberto Barbera, respectively, Rebordinos has steadfastly opposed quotas obliging 50% of festival titles to be from female directors. But in some areas of the festival, parity for...

Madrid — Sergi López and Laia Marull co-star in rites-of-passage drama “La Inocencia” (Innocence), the feature debut of Lucía Alemany, a key name in a generation of often very young women cineastes now energizing Catalan cinema.

Starring Carmen Arrufet in her first lead role, and Joel Bosqued (“Que baje dios y lo vea”), “Innocence” marks a follow-up to Alemany’s multi-prized short “14 Years and a Day.” Produced by Morena Films, and a take on adolescent angst, budding sexuality and daughter-mother conflict set in a nosy Spanish village where privacy is near impossible, the short marked out Alemany, an alum of Barcelona’s Escac film school, as very much a director to track.

In production from Aug. 6 in Alemany’s home village of Traiguera, in the region of Castellón, central eastern Spain, “Innocence” comes with strong backing. Alemany has been championed by Iciar Bollaín, one of Spain’s most foremost women directors,...

The seventh edition received 223 submissions, a 34% rise.

The Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum (September 23-26), hosted by San Sebastian Film Festival, has selected 17 projects for its seventh edition.

Sixteen projects from eleven countries will compete for four awards, including the best project award which comes with a €10,000 prize for the majority producer.

Lony Welter’s La Lluvia, the film selected at Ibermedia’s Workshop to Develop Film Projects from Central America and the Caribbean, will also participate out of competition in the forum.

Countries with projects in the selection include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Italy and Spain.

Amongst the projects is La Llorona from Jayro Bustamante,...

Madrid — Four burgeoning Latin American auteurs – Argentina’s Pablo Fendrik and Emiliano Torres, Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante and Chile’s Pepa San Martín – will present new movie projects at San Sebastian’s 7th Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, the biggest industry event at the most important festival in Spain and Latin America.

Project screenplays still have to be read. Lent edge, however, by the presence of titles from nine women, including two of Catalonia’s most exciting young female cineasts, Meritxell Colell and Clara Roquet, the Forum competition will also welcome some of the producer movers and shakers on Ibero-America’s arthouse scene: Brazil’s Dezenove, Argentina’s Rei Cine and Varsovia Films, Spain’s Avalon and Lastor Media.

Add to that mix two players on three ever more ambitious film hubs – the Basque Country’s Gariza Films, Switzerland’s Matthias Huser and Moroco Alfredo Colman at Argentina second-city Cordoba – and...

Madrid — Multi-prized Spanish actress Emma Suárez, star of Pedro Almodovar’s “Julieta,” is attached to topline “Josefina,” a co-production between Madrid’s White Leaf Producciones and Berlin’s One Two Films, whose recent films include Jennifer Fox’s “The Tale” and Isabel Coixet’s “The Bookshop.”

A romantic drama-comedy to be directed by Spanish short filmmaker Javier Marco, “Josefina” turns on 50-year-old Juan, a prison officer attracted to Berta, the mother of one of the inmates, who passes himself off as another parent visiting the prison in order to see his incarcerated daughter, Josefina.

Josefina’s presence, however fictitious, facilitates a relationship between two people with grave emotional deficiencies, “lending an optimism, and moments of near surrealism and comedy to the film,” screenwriter Belén Sánchez-Arévalo said at the inaugural The Incubator, a development program launched this year by the Ecam Madrid Film School.

Suárez, also the star of Michel Franco’s “April’s Daughter,...

“Why aren’t you crying?” a boy asks 6-year-old Frida as St. Joan fireworks—a Catalan summer solstice festivity—crackle in the background. Frida however doesn’t answer—instead she stoically gazes at the blazing night sky. That’s how Carla Simón’s incredibly poignant personal feature debut begins. Based on Simón’s own experiences with the loss of her parents at a very young age, Summer 1993 centers on Frida, a sly, precocious orphan compellingly played by the gifted young Laia Artigas. We quickly learn Frida’s parents died of AIDS and that she is taken in by her aunt and uncle, played by emerging talent Bruna Cusí and the mustached Catalan heartthrob David Verdaguer, popularly known for 10.000 km. They take Frida to the countryside for the summer with the hopes of returning some semblance of normalcy to her life. There, we find out the reason Frida is not crying...

Sofia Film Festival winners also announced.

Dublin-based Italian writer-director Nathalie Biancheri’s second feature film project Wolf was awarded the Danny Lerner Grand Prix for best international project at the 15th edition of the Sofia Meetings co-production market this weekend.

The Nu Boyana Film Studios’ CEO Yariv Lerner handed over a prize of €50,000 in services and a cheque for €5,000 to Biancheri and her producer Jessie Fisk for what the director describes as “a high concept, absurdist arthouse drama”.

Budgeted at €1.2m, Wolf is set to be the first project to go into production by Fisk’s production company Feline Films.

The 2015 Cinefoundation Atelier will host 15 projects from 14 countries.

The Cannes Film Festival (13 – 24 May) has unveiled this year’s Cinefoundation Atelier selection, comprised of 15 in-development projects from new director talents.

The 2015 selection features 15 projects from 14 countries. The directors and their producers are able to meet with potential funding partners during the festival.

Cinefoundation’s L’Atelier, created in 2005, has hosted 156 projects to date, 103 of which have been released theatrically, while 40 are in pre-production.

Selected projects:

Butterfly Diaries, Paula Un Mi Kim (Brazil)

The Road to Mandalay, Midi Z (Burma)

The Contestant, Carlos Osuna (Colombia)

Compte tes blessures, Morgan Simon (France)

Pari, Siamak Etemadi (Greece/Iran)

Out, György Kristóf, (Hungary/Slovakia)

Twin Flower, Laura Luchetti (Italy)

Our Madness, João Viana (Portugal/Angola)

Borders, Ionuţ Piturescu (Romania)

Popeye, Kirsten Tan (Singapore)

The Tree, Louw Venter (South Africa)

Lands of Loneliness, Meritxell Colell (Spain)

The Mother, Alberto Morais (Spain)

Soundless Dance, Pradeepan Raveendran (Sri Lanka)

Hilal, Feza, and other...