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The 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) will feature key Cannes Film Festival winners in its Horizons section and a selection of action and horror movies, both new and older, for its revamped Midnight Screenings program under the new name “Afterhours.”

In a lineup update unveiled on Friday, Kviff said it will this year screen more than 130 feature films in the picturesque Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.

The Horizons lineup, which traditionally features highlights from the festival circuit of the past year, includes the likes of Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, Tom Shoval’s A Letter to David, Michel Franco’s Dreams, My Father’s Shadow by Akinola Davies Jr., Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, Jafar Panahi‘s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, and fellow Cannes...

For the French-Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe, a competition berth in Cannes has been a long time coming. Laxe was here in 2010 (You All Are Captains), 2016 (Mimosas), and 2019 (Fire Will Come) without once going home empty-handed, and he now rises to the occasion with Sirat, his grandest, most adventurous work yet: the kind of bold, auteurist arrival that seems to happen more here than any other festival. The story takes place in Morocco, which provided the backdrop of Laxe’s first two films, and follows a father searching for his daughter amidst the dust and drugs of an illegal rave scene in and around the Atlas Mountains. There’s a delicious touch of Paul Schrader’s Hardcore to that setup, but Sirat is more in the lineage of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, even Mad Max: a story about a ragtag group attempting to move some monstrous vehicles over a landscape...

Triple Palme d’Or nominated French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello whose latest daring work “The Beast” was one of the hottest titles in the 2023 Venice competition, will be the guest of honor at the second Ecam Forum co-production platform, which will unspool over June 10-13 in Madrid.

On the heels of U.S. indie producer Ted Hope who kicked off Ecam Forum’s masterclass sessions with standout industry voices in 2024, Bonello will discuss his visionary work on June 12 at the Cineteca Madrid. Concurrently, the screening of three of his defining works –Cannes official entries “Tiresia” (2003), “House of Tolerance” (2011) and Directors’ Fortnight’s “Zombi Child” (2019) – will serve as entry points to his cinematic journey.

The Bonello tribute is organized by Ecam Forum – the new industry event spearheaded by Madrid’s prestigious film school Ecam – together with Cineteca Madrid and Filmadrid Festival, in conjunction with collection agent Dama and the Institut Français in Spain.

Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka is now showing on Mubi in many countries.Eureka.A three-part film spanning starkly different locales, eras, and genres, Eureka (2023) stands as Lisandro Alonso’s most ambitious feature to date. It is also quite possibly the director’s most dreamlike—nothing short of remarkable considering its predecessor Jauja (2014). In that spellbinding period piece, a Danish colonial officer (Viggo Mortensen) travels across nineteenth-century Patagonia in search of his missing daughter. Late into the quest, a strange encounter with a wizened Danish-speaking woman suggests the soldier had traveled through time as well as space; a present-day coda makes the film’s timeline and logic even more disorienting.Eureka features a handful of similar twists. Written by Alonso together with poet Fabián Casas and Martín Caamaño, it begins as a black-and-white western starring Chiara Mastroianni as an infallible gunslinger and Viggo Mortensen as a father searching for his abducted daughter (again). But that preamble,...

“Focus the text” commands a translation app pop-up at the mid-point of Matías Piñeiro’s new experimental essay film You Burn Me. It’s a mantra that the Argentinian filmmaker has taken to heart. Using Sea Foam, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s book Dialogues with Leucò, as a creative catalyst, Piñeiro envisions audiovisual dialogues between characters (Sappho and Britomartis), between actresses (María Villar and Gabriela Saidón), between filmmaker and text. As pertinent pages and mnemonic games unfold, repeat, and recontextualize, the spectatorial thrill of Godard’s Goodbye to Language comes to mind. This a formally bold, playful, reinvigorating work––a love letter to language both verbal and visual.

After a warmly received North American premiere at last year’s New York Film Festival, You Burn Me opens in the U.S. in limited theatrical release this week from Cinema Guild. I first saw the film last June, when it had a U.

Can anyone forget the transfixing mysteries of Lois Patiño’s 2023 film, “Samsara”? The director is back with a new feature, “Ariel,” which recently premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival in the Harbour section. The film is a disarmingly playful, free-wheeling strum on representation and reality. It’s lit by a spirit of surreal mischief, as Agustina Muñoz playing herself travels to an island for a production of “The Tempest,” where everyone is locked in a sort of Shakespeare-mania.

HighOnFilms’ Debanjan Dhar caught up with Patiño to discuss Ariel’s metatextual riffs, collaborations with Matías Piñeiro and Ion De Sosa, and bringing Shakespeare into the fold of everyday in the Azores. Edited excerpts from the conversation:

Debanjan: Could you speak about creating the conceit of the ferry where somewhere midway all passengers except Ariel fall into deep sleep? When did that conceit, as the first entry point into that strange,...

A few years back, directors Lois Patiño and Matías Piñeiro joined forces for what was meant to be a very loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The resulting short, Sycorax, felt like the meeting of two kindred spirits. Piñeiro’s ability to resuscitate the Bard’s texts and graft them onto present-day settings met with Patiño’s keen eye for the otherworldly. The story of a fictional cineaste (Piñeiro regular Agustina Muñoz) who roams the Azores in search of a woman to play the eponymous witch from The Tempest, Sycorax oozed both the playfulness of Piñeiro’s “Shakespeareads” and the sensual, hypnotic aura of Patiño’s Red Moon Tide or Samsara. It was that rare joint project whose two directors worked in perfect symbiosis, each playing to the other’s strengths.

Based on an original idea by Piñeiro and Patiño, through written and directed by the latter only, Ariel...

Leading Spanish arthouse sales outfit Bendita Film Sales has swooped on the international sales rights of Ernesto Martínez Bucio’s “The Devil Smokes” ahead of its world premiere at the Berlinale’s new Perspectives sidebar.

Co-written with Karen Plata, Martínez Bucio’s debut feature delves into sibling relationships and how fears are passed down from one generation to the next.

Set in mid-90s Mexico City, “The Devil Smokes” revolves around five young siblings whose grandmother is their sole guardian after the sudden disappearance of their parents. As they fight to survive, the line between reality and something darker starts to blur. The grandmother, haunted by eerie visions and deepening fears, becomes more distant, while the children’s grip on reality begins to unravel. After a clash with their neighbors, the siblings withdraw even further into isolation, cutting themselves off from the outside world.

Said Bendita Film Sales CEO, Luis Renart...

Right from the opening of Lois Patiño’s endlessly beguiling new film “Ariel,” reality is ruptured. The sky and the sea are mottled with a purple glow. The camera shifts its gaze to a troupe of performers on the shores. It’s a Shakespeare play; there’s a rapt audience watching. Agustina Muñoz plays herself, an actress whom the troupe has tapped to play Ariel from The Tempest.

Set in the Azores, she travels to an island to partake in a production. However, a heightened air of the uncanny sets in on the ferry trip itself. Suddenly, everyone aboard except Agustina slips into sleep, as if hexed. It gets even more confounding when she reaches the island. Each of its inhabitants is a Shakespeare character. Agustina is baffled. She thinks they are all playing some trick on her. But they refuse to shake off their performative air.

It’s everywhere she goes,...

Lights On has secured international sales rights to “Ariel,” the latest feature from acclaimed Galician director Lois Patiño, whose previous work “Samsara” tripped out audiences at the Berlin Film Festival. The film is set to make its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam(IFFR) on Feb. 11, screening in the Harbour section, a platform for bold and innovative contemporary cinema.

“Ariel” tells the story of Agustina Muñoz, an Argentine actress who arrives on the Azores Islands to perform in a production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” with the Galician theater company Voadora.

However, after a strange incident on the ferry over, she notices peculiar behavior among the island’s inhabitants. Guided by a mysterious girl named Ariel, the actress navigates a surreal landscape where reality and fantasy blur, creating an ambiguous, dreamlike world.

The film is a Spain-Portugal co-production by Filmika Galaika and Bando à Parte, shot on location in the Azores.

In a clear move toward commercial fare, Spain’s boutique production house Señor y Señora, present this week at Madrid’s Ecam Forum with Pedro Hernando’s work in progress “A Whale,” is lining up its biggest slate ever. |

Heading the outfit’s scripted lineup is “Karateka,” Señor y Señora co-founder Aritz Moreno’s third feature after his Efa nominated breakthrough debut “Advantages of Travelling by Train” and dark thriller “Moscas” which bowed at Sitges and Rotterdam.

Budgeted at over €6 million ($6.5 million), “Karateka” tells the larger-than-life story of Spanish karate queen and Olympic gold medallist Sandra Sánchez.

“It’s the story of a woman’s extraordinary achievement, both on a sports and personal level,” says Moreno, currently location scouting in Japan where he resides.

“Sandra won Spain’s first-ever karate Olympic gold medal aged 39 in Japan, while her long-time Japanese rival Kiyou Shimizu was 27. On a personal level, when she was in her twenties,...

Lois Patiño, one of the leading lights of the New Galician Cinema in Spain, is putting the final touches to “Ariel,” the highly anticipated follow up to his critically-acclaimed feature ”Samsara” which has secured distribution in more than a dozen territories and won a Special Jury Prize at the Berlinale Encounters 2023.

A contemporary and playful reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” from the perspective of the character Ariel, the feature, produced by Spain’s Filmika Galaika with Portugal’s Bando à Parte, will be sneak-peeked for the first time ever at the inaugural Ecam Forum co-production market, set to run June 10-14 in Madrid.

Producer Beli Martínez said more than 80% of the financing is locked via broadcasting partners Rtp in Portugal, Tvg in Galicia, Spain, public funders Agadic in Galicia and Spanish federal agency Icaa and Turismo de Portugal.

At Ecam Forum, she will be looking for post-production financing, distribution and sales.

Programmers from Sundance, Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, Toronto, and Rotterdam, sales agents such as Goodfellas and Coproduction Office and U.S. distributor Magnify Pictures are among 50 top international guests expected at the inaugural Ecam Forum co-production market in Madrid, which is due to unspool June 10-14.

More than 300 delegates have signed up for the co-pro event where a curated slate of 37 Spanish, Latin American and international films and series will compete for the best project, including the next Lois Patiño (“Samsara”), Pablo Hernando (“Berserker”), Belén Funes (“A Thief’s Daughter”) and Sergi Perez (“The Long Way Home”).

Other highlights include masterclasses from U.S. indie mogul Ted Hope, and France’s illustrious cinematographer Hélène Louvart, a regular Alice Rohrwacher and Karim Aïnouz collaborator, and Silver Bear winner 2023 for “Disco Boy.”

In this exclusive interview, Ecam Forum’s coordinator Alberto Valverde maps out the full program of the latest industry initiative of Madrid’s Ecam film school,...

With Samsara, Lois Patiño applies his dramatized ethnographic approach to the Bardo Thodol, commonly known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The film presents a diptych of two stories, one set in Luang Prabang, Laos, and its surrounding countryside, the other in a hamlet in Zanzibar. Patiño stresses the gulf of distance, culture, and more between the two locales by going so far as to employ separate cinematographers—Mauro Herce for the Laos segment and Jessica Sarah Rinland for Zanzibar segment. Despite the marked differences between the two halves, though, Patiño worked with local, nonprofessional actors to craft a unifying metaphysical narrative that traces the ephemeral journey of one soul through death and rebirth by finding the parallels in spiritual beliefs that link two peoples.

A Laotian teenager, Amid, rows out each morning to the hut of a dying old woman and reads to her from the Bardo Thodol,...

Tagged as the new co-production showcase “like all those European markets but hotter,” Ecam Forum, launched by Madrid Film School Ecam, has unveiled the first 10 projects in development and eight in post-production, to be pitched to international decision-makers between June 10-13, in the Spanish capital.

Famed for its standout talent development program Ecam Incubator, the Madrid Film School has set a high bar for its inaugural Forum, which aims to broaden the reach of Spanish productions and co-productions and build bridges between Spain and the global industry.

First case in point: the heavyweight industry names in the selection committees, which reflect the ambitions of coordinator Alberto Valverde and his team, to frame Ecam Forum as a must-attend industry event.

The 10-plus Films to Come or features in development were picked by producers Inés Massa (Materia Cinema) and Agustina Chiarino (Bocacha Films), Eurimages project manager Sergio García de Leániz, and Marina Maesso,...

A snapshot of the most exciting voices working in American and international cinema today––and with a strong focus on newcomers––the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival returns this week, taking place March 13-17.

As always, the annual festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making this series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen. Check out our top picks below, along with the exclusive premiere of the festival trailer.

Arthur&Diana (Sara Summa)

A lo-fi siblings road trip movie shot with a mix of MiniDV, Betacam, and 16mm, Sara Summa’s Arthur&Diana marks an interesting, mostly successful gamble of personal storytelling, in which Summa stars alongside her-real brother, Robin Summa. Jared Mobarak said in his TIFF review, “As such, we glean...

The greatest cinema is often an exciting cocktail for the senses: sound and image in perfect harmony, intricately woven to create an immersive experience that transports us to another world. But what happens when one of those senses is numbed? Silent movies formed the foundations of visual grammar for audiences, and sound was a luxury audiences lived without for many years. Few films have attempted the inverse, plunging the viewer into darkness and relying on sound alone to guide them from one experience to another. Enter Galician filmmaker Lois Patiño's bold and beautiful “Samsara”, a meditative drama set between Laos and Zanzibar that tracks a soul moving between states of existence, and the lives that are touched in big and small ways by this cosmic rite of passage. The term ‘samsara' itself is the cycle of death and reincarnation as seen by Buddhism, and while it may sound familiar...

Malaga, Spain — “The Chapel,” from “Piggy” director Carlota Pereda, Celia Rico’s competition title “Little Loves,” loved by a lot of critics, and “Free Falling,” produced by “Society of the Snow’s” J.A. Bayona and that film’s producer Belén Atienza, looked like three of the hottest tickets at this week’s Malaga market and Spanish Screenings which rated as the most upbeat in years.

Most all sales agents on the films – focusing on titles from Spain and Latin America – whose ranks are now swelled by Antonia Nava’s Neo Art International, forecast or saw deal traction on more than one title or a broad slate of films.

“Malaga was great for our movies,” said Latido Films’ Antonio Saura.

“For us, it’s been the best Spanish Screenings of the last years,” reported Luis Recart at Bendita Film Sales.

Why of course is another matter. 10 takeaways on a Spanish bull market,...

In her feature film debut, “As Neves,” writer-director Sonia Méndez follows a group of teenagers in a Galician village struggling with the disappearance of a friend following a drug-fueled party and heavy snowfall that has cut off Internet access, complicating the search.

Speaking to Variety, Méndez says she was eager to explore a number of elements in the film, namely the youth of today, which she describes as the most hyper-connected generation, and the often violent transition to adulthood.

“As Neves” screens in competition at the Malaga Film Festival.

Having experienced adolescence in the 1990s and belonging to the last generation caught between the analog and digital worlds, Méndez was fascinated by the “coexistence of both paradigms,” particularly among teenagers who live in such isolated areas as the mountain village of As Neves but are nevertheless always online, “which is very common in Galicia.”

Méndez points out, however, that the...

Going into Berlin’s European Film Market, Spain’s biggest sales agents are under no illusion just how tough international markets have become.

“Paradoxically, in one of the best moments for Spanish productions, we are finding that some of our top dramas are getting hard to sell unless selected in Cannes, Venice or Berlin,” says Latido Films CEO Antonio Saura.

Also, “If American productions dominate at least 80% of markets, and local productions claim about half what remains. You’re left with just 10% of markets for many wonderful films to try to find audience opportunities. Competition is fiercer than ever,” he says.

“Many newer platforms are insisting on revenue shares. This rarely works for us,” observes Feel Sales’ Yennifer Fasciani.

Yet companies are fighting back. “Either a film works very well or not at all. Our strategy is increasingly focusing on major titles, leaving no middle ground,” states Film Factory Entertainment’s Vicente Canales,...

Museum of the Moving Image is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the 13th edition of First Look, the Museum's festival of new and innovative international cinema, which will take place in person March 13–17, 2024. Each year, First Look offers a diverse slate of major New York premieres, work-in-progress screenings and sessions, gallery installations, and fresh perspectives on the art and process of filmmaking. This year's festival introduces New York audiences to more than three dozen works from around the world. The guiding ethos of First Look is openness, curiosity, and discovery, aiming to expose audiences to new art, artists to new audiences, and everyone to different methods, perspectives, interrogations, and encounters. For five consecutive days the festival takes over MoMI's two theaters, as well as other rooms and galleries throughout the Museum—with in-person appearances and dialogue integral to the experience. Each night concludes with one of five...

Víctor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes,” Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” and Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” dominated this year’s 21st Ics Awards, winning the top prizes.

“Close Your Eyes,” which picked up best picture and best director, revolves around the mysterious disappearance of a Spanish actor during the filming of a movie. Although his body is never found, the police concludes that he has suffered an accident on the edge of a cliff. Many years later, the cold case resurfaces.

Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” won three awards, including best actress for Sandra Hüller, original screenplay for Triet and Arthur Harari, and editing for Laurent Sénéchal. The movie is nominated for five Oscars, seven BAFTA’s and 11 Cesar Awards.

The romantic fantasy “All of Us Strangers,” meanwhile, won four prizes, including best actor for Andrew Scott, supporting actor for Jamie Bell, adapted screenplay for Haigh,...

The annual Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look Festival has given IndieWire an exclusive “first look” at the lineup.

The 13th annual event, which takes place March 13 through 17 in Astoria, Queens, opens with the New York premiere of Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’s “Sujo,” which recently took home the Grand Jury Prize, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

The First Look Festival focuses on emerging talents and international voices, with the fest premiering 46 works, including 20 features that represent 21 countries. Highlights include Farhad Delaram’s “Achilles,” Graham Swon’s “An Evening Song (for three voices), and the U.S. premiere of Lois Patiño’s “Samsara.” Zhang Mengqi’s “Self-Portrait: 47 Km 2020,” which won the Award of Excellence winner at the 2023 Yamagata Documentary Festival, will also screen along with Shoghakat Vardanyan’s 2023 IDFA grand prize winner “1489,” the debut for the filmmaker. Returning First Look directors like Michaël Andrianaly...

In a world with so much streaming content on demand, it’s sometimes easy to forget about the unique experience of watching a film in a cinema, where every audience brings a different energy. While it could be argued that any film gains from that dynamic, there were several films from the past year for which it was particularly notable, including Oppenheimier, Society Of The Snow (ironically sent almost immediately to Netflix) and The Zone Of Interest. In among these big hitters, however, was another, equally innovative film that positively demands to be seen on a big screen where it can be best appreciated.

All of which is to say, don’t miss the opportunity to catch Samsara onscreen, a film that is special not least because you won’t actually be watching the screen itself when it’s at its most immersive. Lois Patiño proved he understood the capabilities of the big screen.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s influence can be traced in Spanish film-maker Lois Patiño’s whimsical meditation on the Buddhist cycle of life

Lois Patiño’s film is a delicate, exotic contrivance, a docu-realist diptych spectacle using nonprofessional actors, about the Buddhist concept of “Samsara”, the cycle of birth, death and life, and the transmigration of souls. Set in Laos and Zanzibar, it is mysterious and quietist, but flavoured with something whimsical and even playful; it is one of those ostensibly serious films best appreciated with the sense of humour, which Graham Greene said was the only thing that allowed him to believe in God. An agnostic might find something a little preposterous, even condescending in it: is it addressed to actual audiences in Laos and Zanzibar, or is this a film by and for western cinephiles? Well, there is charm and ingenuous directness here, and perhaps the influence of Thai film-maker Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Tenerife’s Bendita Film Sales has picked up worldwide sales for “Memories of a Burning Body,” a hybrid-doc just selected for the Berlinale Panorama.

Directed by Antonella Sudasassi Furniss, the Costa Rican writer-director-producer, this is her second film following the critically acclaimed “The Awakening of the Ants.”

Her debut film, which premiered at Berlinale 2019, was the Costa Rican entry for the Academy Awards and received global recognition, including a Goya Award nomination, and Costa Rica’s first Platino Award.

“We immediately fell in love with the film when we attended the Wip screening at Ventana Sur, where it would later win the main awards in Primer Corte,” said Luis Renart, CEO at Bendita Film Sales.

“Antonella has a dazzling talent and has crafted a beautiful, honest, intimate and unique film,” he added. “At the end of the [Ventana Sur] screening, almost all attendees stayed silent for a few minutes, deeply moved by...

Drawing from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Lois Patiño’s film features a 15-minute light-and-sound interlude in which viewers can join the star on his journey to the afterlife

Lois Patiño had been thinking about phantoms when he came up with the idea for a film that people could watch with their eyes closed. The director’s first two features, 2013’s Coast of Death and 2020’s Red Moon Tide, showed the coastal landscape of his native Galicia in sweeping, spectral glory. Myths, ghosts and omens of death swirl as locals recall stories of shipwrecks, fishermen lost at sea, and rumours of a legendary sea monster.

“I’ve been digging into contemplative cinema,” says Patiño, 40, of his earlier work, “and wanted to go further into this idea of an introspective, meditative experience.” He began thinking about “the idea of the invisible in cinema. Suddenly, this very literal idea of making...

"The world opens to those who open up to it." Curzon in the UK has unveiled a trailer for an acclaimed film called Samsara, described as a "highly immersive and meditative film by artist and director Lois Patiño." Not to be confused with Ron Fricke's meditative globe-spanning documentary also called Samsara (2012). The term "saṃsāra" is actually a Pali/Sanskrit word that means "wandering" as well as "world," wherein the term connotes "cyclic change" or, less formally, "running around in circles." In the temples of Laos, teenage monks accompany a soul in transit from one body to another through the bardo. A luminous and sonorous journey leads to reincarnate on the beaches of Zanzibar, where groups of women work in seaweed farms. Berlinale adds: "In this conversation held on the border between life, death & meditation, Patiño continues his exploration of the image as an immersive experience. [As with films] by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the cycle of birth,...

Festival ran November 2-12.

Sofia Exarchou’s Animal has won the €10,000 Golden Alexander-Theo Angelopoulos prize for best film at the 64th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, the first time in 30 years a Greek production has won the top prize.

The film’s lead actress Dimitra Vlagopoulou also won the best actress award ex aequo with Joanna Arnow for US production The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed, which she also directed.

Vlagopoulou had previously won best actress at Locarno where the film had its world premiere.

The Greek, Austrian, Romanian, Cypriot, Bulgarian co-production follows a group of women...

Animal Photo: Courtesy of Locarno Film Festival It seems appropriate that the Greek port city of Thessaloniki has become a cultural meeting point for films from around the globe. The festival hub - where much of the 64th edition of the event unfolded in the past week - is in the dock area, now a hive of cultural activity.

The stately Olympion cinema also offers a warm welcome to festivalgoers nearby, although my favourite discovery this year was the small but lovely Makedonikon cinema, tucked away in a back street near the city's White Tower monument. An arthouse cinema outside the festival dates, it was the perfect place to catch the experimental Samsara. This was not the Ron Fricke film but a transportive journey from Spanish director Lois Patiño (Coast Of Death), which, at its midway point, instructs viewers to close their eyes before taking on a sensory trip "through...

Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal” won the Golden Alexander at the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival on Sunday, marking the first time in 30 years that a Greek film took home the top honors at the country’s longest-running film event.

Exarchou’s sophomore feature, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, was praised by Variety’s Jessica Kiang as “a poignant portrait of life amid the sequins and the seediness of a Greek resort.” The film follows a group of entertainers at an all-inclusive island resort preparing for the busy tourist season who are forced to wrestle with the dark reality that the show must go on as the sultry Mediterranean nights turn violent.

Lead actor Dimitra Vlagopoulou, who won the acting award at the prestigious Swiss fest for what Kiang called a “riveting” performance, also shared the award for best actress in Thessaloniki. The awards were handed out by a jury comprised of producer Diana Elbaum,...

Mubi Podcast: Encuentros returns for a fifth season.The first episode features:Lois Patiño (Spain), visual artist and filmmaker. Her experimental and contemplative feature and short films have been screened at venues such as the Directors Fortnight, the New York Film Festival, and Ficunam. His debut feature Costa da morte won the award for Best Director in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at Locarno and, more recently, Samsara, his third feature, won the Special Jury Prize in the Encounters section at the Berlinale.Natalia López Gallardo (Bolivia-México), editor, actress and director. She has edited films such as Heli, by Amat Escalante; Jauja, by Lisandro Alonso, and Silent Light (Luz silenciosa) by Carlos Reygadas, for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. She made her directorial debut in 2006 with her short film En el cielo como en la tierra, presented in Rotterdam, and 17 years later, her first feature film...

In standout results that suggests the strength of select Spanish arthouse films on the current international market, Bendita Films Sales, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife-based boutique world sales agency, has closed a formidable raft of deals to Galician auteur Lois Patiño’s multisensory journey film “Samsara.”

Winner of a Special Jury Award at Berlin’s 2023 major sidebar Encounters and the Audience Award at Mexico’s Ficunam festival, “Samsara” has just screened in main competition at the 68th Valladolid Intl. Film Festival (Oct. 21-28), running up more than a dozen international film festival selections.

Bendita Film Sales has clinched commercial release pacts in the U.K. and Ireland, with Curzon Film, scheduled for a Jan. 26 launch; with Films Sans Frontiéres in France, Mooov in Belgium and Netherlands – planned for May 15 and Feb. 15, respectively – and with Exit Media in Italy by June, among other markets.

Produced by Leire Apellaniz at San Sebastian-based Señor y Señora,...

In times of dramatic change for the film-tv industry, Spanish auteur cinema is booming, goosed by multiple significant and high-quality titles, reaping prizes, critical praise and profile at international festivals.

Beyond the preeminent interest in established auteurs such as Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro Amenábar, J.A. Bayona, Isabel Coixet and Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Spanish sales agents and distributors celebrate the increasingly strong presence of young local film auteurs on the international scene. The big question is, however, how this profile can translate into box office impact and substantial sales.

“We are living a very sweet moment in terms of the recognition of our cinema at international festivals, with ever more filmmakers who are creating dazzling works,” says Luis Renart, founder of Santa Cruz de Tenerife-based sales company Bendita Films.

“There’s a generation of creators and producers who look to international auteur cinema when they build their projects, made with a European sensibility and a very marked identity,...

One of Spain’s biggest and oldest movie events, the Valladolid Intl. Film Festival, known as the Seminci in Spain, is broadening its range of Spanish films and aims to strengthen its position as an international platform for art films.

Running Oct. 21-28 in Valladolid, the capital city of Spanish region Castilla-Leon, the Seminci’s 68th edition marks the first under new director José Luis Cienfuegos, named last April.

With an illustrious near 30-year career as a festival director, at the helm of the Seville European Film Festival (2012-2023) and prior to that at the Gijon Intl. Film Festival (1995-2011), Cienfuegos has arrived to Valladolid at a time when a new generation of Spanish film auteurs, often women, is booming, making waves at the international festivals circuit.

“Valladolid is a city absolutely dedicated to the festival that demands and needs to open the doors to a new generation of filmmakers,...

“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...

Underscoring a renaissance on Spain’s genre scene, a duo of titles – Daniel Calparsoro’s “All the Names of God” and Carlota Pereda’s “The Chapel” – lead the lineup of the second Spanish Screenings on Tour, which unspools at Rome’s Mia forum, taking place Oct. 9-13.

A platform of market premieres, projects, pics in post and potential remake titles, the Spanish Screenings also underscore the ever stronger emergence in Spain of open arthouse titles – Isaki Lacuesta’s “Saturn Return,” Arantxa Echeverría “Chinas,” Benito Zambrano’s “Jumping the Fence” and Gerardo Herrero’s “Under Therapy,” which was one of the best-selling titles at March’s Malaga Spanish Screenings.

With titles in Next from Spain set to present trailers, Spanish Screenings on Tour will also position a bevy of anticipated feature debuts, at different stages of production, from Spain’s seemingly bottomless well of new talent, such as Jaume Claret Muxart.

Italy-based sales agent Lights On has acquired world rights for Dreaming & Dying, directed by Singaporean filmmaker Nelson Yeo, ahead of its world premiere in Locarno Film Festival’s Concorso Cineasti del presente.

Co-produced by Singapore’s Momo Film Co and Indonesia’s Kawankawan Media, the film is a drama fantasy about three middle-aged friends reuniting for the first time in many years. Each of them sets out to confess unexpressed feelings but their vacation takes a surprising turn when the undercurrent of their past lives threatens to resurface.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Yeo and is produced by Tan Si En and Sophia Sim who previously worked with the filmmaker on award-winning shorts Dreaming, Plastic Sonata and Mary, Mary So Contrary.

Tan previously produced Anthony Chen’s Wet Season, which played at the Toronto International Film Festival, and co-produced Arnold Is A Model Student, which premiered in Locarno last year.

In the lead-up to Cannes, Spanish film sales continue to show resilience despite shifting market trends and global challenges. The market signals suggest an enduring preference for genre movies and high-concept films, while the sale of arthouse fare remains tough.

Antonio Saura, director general of Latido Films, tells Variety, “The trends we are seeing confirm the trends we identified last year — movies with a strong concept, genre in general, generate interest, [whereas] drama and ‘art house’ is more complicated and requires a different type of attention and positioning.”

While there are signs of interest for movies with top talent attached, smaller films without a significant festival presence face an uphill battle.

This trend is underscored by the Spanish films selected for Cannes, which range from Benito Zambrano’s “Jumping the Fence” and Roya Sadat’s “Sima’s Song,” to Pau Calpe’s “Werewolf.” These films, part of the Spanish Screenings Goes to Cannes section,...

“20,000 Species of Bees,” (Estibaliz Urresola)

One of the big winners at Berlin, taking Leading Performance, and now racking up healthy sales, the story of a family off for a village summer holiday which builds to a moving ode to women’s freedoms. Sales: Luxbox

“21 Paraíso,” (Nestor Ruiz Medina)

Living in an idyllic Andalusia, a couple in love grapples with the realities of making a living through OnlyFans. Screened at Seville and Tallinn. Sales: Begin Again Films.

“All the Names of God,” (Daniel Calparsoro)

One of the big Spanish action-thrillers hitting this Cannes market, from a specialist (“Sky High”). Pre-sold to France (Kinovista), Germany and Italy (Koch Media) with Tripictures releasing in Spain. Sales: Latido

“Un amor,” (Isabel Coixet)

The multi-prized Coixet (“The Secret Life of Words”).

directs Goya winner Laia Costa (“Lullaby”) in a village-set study of an isolated woman’s succumbing to devouring passion. Sales: Film Constellation.

“Ashes in the Sky,...

Further winners included Paul B. Preciado’s French documentary ‘Orlando, My Political Biography’.

There Is A Stone by Japanese filmmaker Tatsunari Ota and From You by Korea’s Shin Dongmin were awarded the top prizes at South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival on Wednesday (May 3).

There Is A Stone took the grand prize in the international competition, which included an award of KW20m. The meditative drama, which premiered at Tokyo Filmex before screening at the Berlinale in February, follows a woman and man who meet by a river and pass the time together before twilight.

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Galician language film is sold by Europe Film Sales.

Berlinale Panorama title Matria, the feature-debut of Spanish director Álvaro Gago, a Screen Star of Tomorrow, has sold to France.

French distributor Les Alquimistes has picked up the film from sales agent Europe Film Sales. Talks are ongoing for other territories.

Galician-language Matria focuses on the trials and tribulations of a 40-something single mother in a coastal town in northwestern Spain, and was well received by reviewers at Berlin.

Gago previously made a short film of the same name, featuring the same character, which won the short film grand jury prize at the 2018 Sundance film festival.

Dreams.Some of my favorite work at this year’s Berlinale engaged in some way with death or the afterlife. Lighten up, you say? Impossible. The most literal and beguiling of these was Lois Patiño’s Samsara, which ingeniously conjured the transitional passage between life and death, Buddhism’s intermediate state of bardo. There were the cinematic afterlives of lost films, excavated collections, and reimagined family albums; the archive’s perpetual reincarnation as a generative source for experimental and artists’ film. There were homages to artists from the past, whose legacies continue to inspire the present, including work by the recently deceased Michael Snow and Takahiko Iimura, and film tributes to avant-garde legends like Margaret Tait in Luke Fowler’s Being in a Place, and John Cage in Kevin Jerome Everson’s If You Don’t Watch the Way You Move. Then there was the teeming, unseen world of spirits...

The Spanish film follows a Buddhist monk who helps an elderly woman transition from death to her next life

Curzon has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Lois Patiño’s Samsara from Spain’s Bendita Film Sales.

The drama premiered in Berlin’s Encounters strand this year where it won the special jury prize.

Curzon will release the title theatrically and on its streaming service Curzon Home Cinema.

Samsara is the story of a Buddhist monk who helps an elderly woman transition from death to her next life as a reincarnated goat.

It is produced by Señor y Señora.

Patiño...

On the Adamant.Competition(Jury: Kristen Stewart, Golshifteh Farahani, Valeska Grisebach, Radu Jude, Francine Maisler, Carla Simón, Johnnie To)Golden BearOn the Adamant (Nicolas Philibert)Silver Bear — Grand Jury PrizeAfire (Christian Petzold) (read interview)Silver Bear — Jury PrizeBad Living (João Canijo)Silver Bear for Best DirectorPhilippe Garrel (The Plough) (read more)Silver Bear for Best Leading PerformanceSofía OteroSilver Bear for Best Supporting PerformanceThea Ehre (Till the End of the Night) (read more)Silver Bear for Best ScreenplayAngela Schanelec (Music) (read more)Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic ContributionHélène Louvart (Disco Boy)HereENCOUNTERS(Jury: Dea Kulumbegashvili, Angeliki Papoulia, Paolo Moretti)Award for Best FilmHere (Bas Devos)Special Jury AwardOrlando, My Political Biography (Paul B. Preciado)Samsara (Lois Patiño)Award for Best DirectorTatiana Huezo (The Echo)Generation — Kplus(Jury: Venice Atienza, Alise Ģelze, Gudrun Sommer)Crystal BearSweet As (Jub Clerc)Special MentionSea Sparkle (Domien Huyghe)Best Short FilmQueenie (Lloyd Lee Choi)Special...

The gender-neutral acting prize was won by Spain’s Sofía Otero for ’20,000 Species of Bees’.

Nicolas Philibert’s documentary On The Adamant, about a floating care centre in Paris, was awarded Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin International Film Festival tonight (February 25).

The film, which is being handled internationally by Les Films du Losange, is the fourth documentary to take top honours at the Berlinale.

German films found particular favour with the jury, presided over by Kristen Stewart, with no less than three of the Bear statuettes going to local productions: the Silver Bear Grand Jury award for Christian Petzold’s Afire,...

The documentary “On the Adamant” has been named the best film of the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, Berlin organizers announced on Saturday.

The film from director Nicolas Philibert follows life in a daycare center located on the Seine in Paris for adults with mental disorders. It is the first documentary to win the festival’s top prize since “Fire at Sea” in 2016.

German director Christian Petzold won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, essentially the runner-up award, for his drama “Afire,” while Philippe Garrel won the directing award for “The Plough.” The gender-neutral acting prizes went to Sofia Otero for “20,000 Species of Bees” in the leading performance category and Thea Ehre for “Till the End of the Night” in the supporting category.

The jury president was actress Kristen Stewart. The other jurors were actress Goldshifteh Farahani, directors Valeska Grisebach, Radu Jude and Carla Simón and Johnnie To and casting director Francine Maisler.

Winners have been announced at the 73rd Berlin Film Festival, with On the Adamant by Nicolas Philibert scooping the coveted Golden Bear prize as the best film of the festival’s International Competition. Scroll down for the full list of winners, which were revealed Saturday evening at the Berlinale Palast.

The film chronicles a unique day-care center in the heart of Paris that welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering the kind of care that grounds them in time and space and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits.

Introducing the film, jury head Kristen Stewart said the pic is “masterfully crafted” and acts as “cinematic proof of the vital necessity of human expression.”

Other winners in the International Competition included Philippe Garrel, who picked up the Silver Bear for Best Director for his latest pic Le grand chariot (The Plough). Garrel dedicated the award to the late filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.

On the Adamant, a documentary by French director Nicolas Philibert that gives an intimate look at the patients and caregivers in a mental health center located on the Seine River in the heart of Paris, has won the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear for best film.

For his 11th feature, the 72-year-old Philibert spent months aboard a barge anchored on the Seine in Paris, chronicling a mental health care facility that caters specifically to its patients’ creative needs. His documentary explores issues of creativity and art, of sanity and madness, but does so without applying labels or clear-cut distinctions.

“I don’t like partitions or labels,” Philibert said. “In this film on psychiatry, we were always [careful] to not always distinguish very clearly between patients and carers. I tried to reverse the image we always have of mad people [which I see] as discriminating and stigmatizing. I wanted us to be able,...