News

Exclusive: Paramount has preemptively acquired Two Truths and a Lie, a horror novella from Sarah Pinsker, enlisting Javier Gullón (Enemy) to adapt it for the big screen.

While plot details for the film are being kept under wraps, the novella tells the story of Stella, who was sure she’d made it up — a strange childhood memory of a local TV show with a disturbing host that she and the neighborhood kids supposedly appeared on. But when her old friend and even her mom confirm it happened, she’s left questioning why she has no memory of it. As she begins unraveling the truth behind the broadcast and its lingering presence in her town, the mystery becomes darker and more disturbing.

Walter Hamada will produce via his 18hz production company, as part of his first-look deal with the studio. 18hz’s Nathan Samdahl brought the project in and will oversee for the company,...

San Sebastian — In a talent laden presentation, Atresmedia Cine announced on Tuesday at San Sebastian “Siempre es Invierno,” the upcoming film from celebrated helmer David Trueba. The film will be an adaptation by Trueba of his own novel “Blitz,” a story about an unexpected love affair between a man in his thirties and a woman in her sixties.

Following a fruitful experience with Trueba’s previous comedy “Jokes and Cigarettes,” Atresmedia Cine, the film arm of Atresmedia Corporación, one of Spain’s top two commercial broadcast network groups, wanted to do more. “At Atresmedia, we knew we wanted to continue supporting his films and make his next movie. We went to lunch with him and [producer] Edmon [Roch] and said, ‘David, what do you want to do?’” Jaime Ortiz de Artiñano, managing director at Atresmedia Cine, said on stage at a room in the luxuriant Maria Cristina Hotel at San Sebastian.

Trueba...

Exclusive: Warner Bros is finalizing a deal to preemptively acquire The Bet, a hot spec from Spanish screenwriter Javier Gullón (Enemy), according to multiple sources.

The studio declined comment. No deal figure was given.

While plot details are under wraps, the project has been described as a twisty, female-led thriller with pitch-black humor, set at a glittering destination for the ultra-rich. Ben Pugh, Peter Dealbert and Josh Varney will produce for 42.

A Goya Award nominee, Gullón is best known for scripting the surreal psychological thriller Enemy for director Denis Villeneuve. Released by A24 in 2014 after world premiering at the Toronto Film Festival, the film starred Jake Gyllenhaal as a man on a quest for his exact look-alike, after spotting him in a movie. Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, and Isabella Rossellini co-starred.

Gullón has sold and adapted numerous sci-fi short stories at auction for film and TV including Neanderthal (fka N...

Exclusive: Hollywood management and production company The Gotham Group has launched a new international division and appointed long-time manager and producer Justin Littman as its head.

The appointment see Littman join The Gotham Group partners roster alongside Peter McHugh, Julie Kane-Ritsch, Lindsay Williams, Jeremy Bell, Eric Robinson, Lee Stollman, Rich Green, and Matt Shichtman.

“We’re thrilled to have Justin leading The Gotham’s Group’s surging international client roster,” said The Gotham Group Founder and CEO Ellen Goldsmith-Vein.

“This initiative underscores our ability and intention to expand the boundaries of our business, to tap into the creative minds of artists around the globe to create entertainment for audiences everywhere,” said Goldsmith-Vein.

Littman said the time was ripe for such a move.

“International voices are driving a huge part of the conversation in film and TV,” he said. “The Gotham Group is excited to launch a dedicated department to focus on these artists,...

In the Spanish comedy drama series “Zorras,” based on the Noemí Casquet best selling novel of the same name, Andrea Ros, Mirela Balic, and Tai Fei play Alicia, Emily, and Diana, three women from very different backgrounds. They find a commonality, however, in a desire for friendship and exploration of themselves through sexual experimentation and novelty.

“Zorras” might translate as “sluts” or “tramps.” The show flips such terms and acts such as bondage on their head.

“I really think it’s about empowering ourselves through those words that have been pejorative to us throughout our existence simply by living and doing with our lives what we want to do with our lives,” Casquet told Variety.

“The term ‘sluts’ has always been very derogatory regardless of how many times we slept with someone. What this series wants to do is to turn the term around. To stop hurting us and to...

Spanish sales company to handle Spanish director’s third feature.

Spanish sales company Bendita Films has acquired international rights to Lois Patiño’s third feature Samsara, which plays in the Berlinale’s Encounters section

Samsara is a Sanskrit word referring to the cycle of birth, life, death and re-incarnation. Patiño’s film travels from the temples of Laos to the beaches of Zanzibar, accompanying a soul in transit from one body to another.

Patiño’s Red Moon Tide premiered in the Berlinale Forum in 2020 while Coast of Death won the best emerging director prize at Locarno in 2013. His short film...

Beta Film has partnered with Morena Films and Disney + Spain, picking up international distribution rights to the young-adult mystery drama “The Invisible Girl,” based on the best-selling book trilogy of the same name by Blue Jeans, a leading figure in YA literature.

The eight-hour series is being shot in Carmona, Southern Spain, and in various locations across the province of Seville, among them El Viso del Alcor and Gerena.

The thriller series, produced by Morena Films, stars Daniel Grao and Zoe Stein, playing father and daughter involved in the investigation of a murder of a teenage girl in the picturesque fictional town of Cárdena, set in Andalusia. The two are forced to put their differences aside in order to solve the murder case rocking a supposedly peaceful town, where all inhabitants are suspects.

“The Invisible Girl” is directed by Tito López Amado and Aritz Moreno (“Advantages of Travelling by Train...

Disney+ has teamed with Beta Film and Morena Films on an adaptation of young adult mystery novel franchise The Invisible Girl from leading YA author Blue Jeans.

The Spanish arm of streamer Disney+ has put the eight-hour series into production in Carmona, southern Spain, and various locations across the province of Seville. The series is based on a trilogy of books from Blue Jeans, with Spanish producer Moreno leading on production and Beta taking international rights, bar the U.S., Asia-Pacific and Iberia.

Daniel Grao and Zoe Stein have landed the leads, playing a father and daughter involved in the investigation of a murdered teenage girl in the picturesque fictional town of Cárdena, set in Andalusia, in what’s billed as an “atmospheric thriller.”

The two are forced to put their differences aside and to succumb their tense relationship in order to solve the...

Nominations for feature film and documentary up from five to six.

The nominations for the 2020 European Film Awards have been unveiled, with the size of two key categories extended as a result of the virus crisis.

The categories for best feature and best documentary have each been increased from five to six to offer more exposure to titles and artists impacted by cinema closures and release delays during the pandemic.

Scroll down for full list of nominees

The films nominated in the best European Film category are Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, Berhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, Jan Komasa’s Corpus Christi,...

The Big Hit, Ladies of Steel and Advantages of Travelling by Train will vie for the European Comedy award. The European Film Awards has announced the nominations for the 2020 European Comedy category. The nominations were determined by a committee comprised of Efa Board Members Katriel Schory (Israel) and Angela Bosch Ríus (Spain), director-screenwriter Paddy Breathnach (Ireland), festival programmer Markus Duffner (Germany/Italy) and distributor-festival programmer Selma Mehadzic (Croatia). The nominated films are: European ComedyThe Big Hit - Emmanuel Courcol (France)Ladies of Steel - Pamela Tola (Finland)Advantages of Travelling by Train - Aritz Moreno (Spain) The nominated films will now be made available to the more than 3,800 Efa Members to elect the winner. The European Comedy 2020 will then be presented at the 33rd European Film Awards in December.

A trio of laffers — from France, Spain, and Finland —have been nominated for this year’s European Film Awards in the best European comedy category.

The European Film Academy announced its 2020 nominees for best Euro comedy on Tuesday, naming a final shortlist containing Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit, Aritz Moreno’s The Advantages of Traveling By Train, and Ladies of Steel from Finish director Pamela Tola.

Kad Merad, of Welcome to the Sticks fame, stars in The Big Hit as a once-famous actor down on his luck who decides to give drama lessons to prisoners in an attempt to stage Samuel ...

A trio of laffers — from France, Spain, and Finland —have been nominated for this year’s European Film Awards in the best European comedy category.

The European Film Academy announced its 2020 nominees for best Euro comedy on Tuesday, naming a final shortlist containing Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit, Aritz Moreno’s The Advantages of Traveling By Train, and Ladies of Steel from Finish director Pamela Tola.

Kad Merad, of Welcome to the Sticks fame, stars in The Big Hit as a once-famous actor down on his luck who decides to give drama lessons to prisoners in an attempt to stage Samuel ...

Other nominees include ‘Intemperie’, ’The Endless Trench’ and ’Fire Will Come’.

Alejandro Amenábar’s While At War leads the nominations for Spain’s 34th Goya Academy Awards but will face-off against Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain And Glory at the ceremony on January 25 in Malaga.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Amenábar’s Spanish Civil War drama has secured 17 nominations while Almodóvar’s semi-autobiographical film has 16 nods.

While At War has proved a box office hit following its debut at Toronto, ranking as Spain’s third highest-grossing domestic film of 2019 and taking more than $11.3m to date.

Pain and Glory...

Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” will go head-to-head with two other big Spanish films – Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War” and “The Endless Trench,” from Aitor Aguirre, Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga – at Spain’s 34th Goya Academy Awards, to be held Jan. 25 in Malaga.

“Pain and Glory” garnered 16 nominations,” “While at War” 17 and “The Endless Trench” 15.

Though most pundits would put “Pain and Glory” as the frontrunner, the outcome is difficult to predict. World-premiering in Spain before competing in Cannes, where Antonio Banderas won the best actor prize, “Pain and Glory” was reckoned by Spanish critics to be Almodóvar’s best film in a decade.

But ever since the screenplay for Luis Buñuel’s “Viridiana,” which went on to win the Palme d’Or, was written off in Spain as nonsense, the Spanish industry has steadfastly refused to kowtow to internationally acclaimed directors or indeed talent.

Screening at Ventana Sur,...

Barcelona — Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s debut feature “The Platform” was awarded best film, and best F/X at the 52nd Sitges’ Intl. Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia. Gaztelu-Urrutia also snagged the Citizen Kane Award for an up-and-coming director and the Audience Award for best picture. The prizes come off the back of the Grolsch People’s Choice Award at Toronto’s Midnight Madness.

Produced by Carlos Juárez at Bilbao-based outfit Basque Films in co-production with Barcelona’s Mr. Miyagi, Gaztelu-Urrutia’s debut offers a harsh survival parable of power human relationships in a dystopic multi-floor dungeon prison. Its oft-starving dwellers handle the situation with existential and cannibalistic inclinations. The nightmarish script was co-written by successful Catalan playwright David Desola (“Warehoused”) and Pedro Rivero, co-director of Gkids U.S. pick-up “Bird Boy.”

Bilbao-born Gaztelu-Urrutia is an experienced producer at Basque Films and has directed commercials as well as two shorts. One,...

Competition to screen 14 titles including the world premieres of Japanese films Tezuka’s Barbara and A Beloved Wife.

Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) has announced the full line-up for its 32nd edition, including the 14 titles selected for its International Competition.

In addition to previously announced Japanese titles Tezuka’s Barbara from Macoto Tezka and Shin Adachi’s A Beloved Wife, the competition will screen five other world premieres including Chinese director Wang Rui’s Chaogtu With Sarula, Food For A Funeral from Turkey’s Reis Celik and Uncle from Danish director Frelle Petersen.

Asia premieres in this section include Jayro...

Seven world premieres will be among the pics competing in the main competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

Fourteen films, reduced from the 16 of recent years, will compete for the Grand Prix, including Advantages of Travelling by Train from Spain's Aritz Moreno, Norway's Disco, Turkey's Food for a Funeral and Only the Animals from France's Dominik Moll.

Japan will be represented by two movies, as has been the recent custom at the fest: Shin Adachi's A Beloved Wife and Macoto Tezka's Tezuka's Barbara, based on the book by the director's father, legendary manga and ...

Seven world premieres will be among the pics competing in the main competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

Fourteen films, reduced from the 16 of recent years, will compete for the Grand Prix, including Advantages of Travelling by Train from Spain's Aritz Moreno, Norway's Disco, Turkey's Food for a Funeral and Only the Animals from France's Dominik Moll.

Japan will be represented by two movies, as has been the recent custom at the fest: Shin Adachi's A Beloved Wife and Macoto Tezka's Tezuka's Barbara, based on the book by the director's father, legendary manga and ...

San Sebastian — Basque cinema is attacking the future with higher industrial and creative expectations than ever, playing off two motors: Co-production with other parts of Spain, international equity partnerships.

Two game-changers in the Basque film landscape, “Handia,” winner of 10 Spanish Academy Goya Awards in 2018, and “Loreak,” Spain’s 2016 Oscar submission, have contributed to consolidate local industry’s self-confidence in recent years.

The resurgence of Basque cinema is led by established production outfits such as Irusoin, Moriarti Produkzioak, Txintxua Films, Kowalski Films and Señor y Señora, whose managing boards combine in many cases talented creators and ambitious producers, which has proved a highly advantageous formula.

“There is an artistic and entrepreneurial ambition to make films that can reach the global market,” says Señor y Señora’s Leire Apellaniz, producer of San Sebastian New Directors player “Las letras de Jordi,” by Maider Fernández, and Aritz Moreno’s Sitges contender “Ventajas de viajar en tren.

Ubiquitous Galician actor Luis Tosar is working with the tireless filmmaker again after performing in another heist film of his, To Steal From a Thief. Luis Tosar will be featuring prominently on the Spanish cinema listings over the next few months, with turns in Out in the Open (directed by Benito Zambrano), Advantages of Travelling by Train (the feature debut by Aritz Moreno) and the heist thriller Way Down (helmed by Jaume Balagueró – see the news). Right now, he finds himself toplining another film of the same genre: Hasta el cielo (lit. “To the Sky”), the new feature by Daniel Calparsoro, with whom he worked on To Steal From a Thief (another movie about a robbery). Incidentally, Calparsoro is just about ready with Twin Murders: The Silence of the White City, a film adaptation of the novel of the same name, which is slated to be released in Spain...

Navarre’s 35% tax credit has mainly lured a large list of national feature productions since its launch in 2015. Further international film and TV projects partially shot there, accessing Spain’s 20% tax deductions; other benefited from R&d incentives for Navarre-based animation and post-production companies. Here are some recent highlights:

Title – Year Of Production – Director – Production Company – Location

-”Ventajas de Viajar en Tren.” 2019. Aritz Moreno. Logical Pictures, Morena Films, Señor & Señora. Pamplona.

-“Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds.” 2019. Toni García. Apolo Films. Animation.

-“Line Walker: Operation Midnight Shadow.” 2018-2019. Babieka Line Walker. Filmed in Pamplona, Tafalla.

-“Offering to the Storm“ (The Baztán Trilogy). 2018-2019. Fernando González Molina. Nostromo Pictures, Atresmedia Cine, Nadcon. Baztán Valley, Elizondo, Pamplona.

-“The Legacy of the Bones” (The Baztán Trilogy). 2018-2019. Fernando González Molina. Nostromo Pictures, Atresmedia Cine, Nadcon. Baztán Valley, Elizondo, Pamplona.

-”Los Japón.” 2018. Álvaro Díaz Lorenzo. Dlo Producciones, Atresmedia Cine,...

“4×4”

(Television Abierta, Mediapro)

First solo feature from Mariano Cohn, this is a pointed social dramedy about a thief trapped in a 4 x 4 by the car’s owner.

Sales: Latido

“Advantages of Traveling by Train”

(Morena Films, Señor y Señora Films, Logical Pictures)

Aritz Moreno’s debut feature, penned by Javier Gullón, revolves around stories told by untrustworthy narrators: a young editor and a psychiatrist who unexpectedly meet on a train.

Sales: Seville Intl.

“A Sun That Never Sets”

(Miramemira, Kowalski Films, 4 A 4 Prods., Tarantula)

Olivier Laxe, 2016’s Cannes Critics’ winner, now plays Un Certain Regard with this arthouse thriller about a convicted arsonist returning to his native Galician forests.

“Baby”

(Fragil Zinema)

A young junkie gives her newborn baby to a child trafficking racket and soon regrets the act. Juanma Bajo Ulloa directs.

“Bikes”

(Animation Bikes A.I.E., Cvc Group, Aleph Media)

The first Spain-China co-production is an animated...

Seville International said Tuesday it will sell international rights at the upcoming American Film Market to Advantages of Traveling by Train, the upcoming Spanish comedic horror pic being directed by Aritz Moreno and written by Javier Gullón (Enemy). Production is set to start in December with a cast that includes Luis Tosar, Ernesto Alterio, Pilar Castro, Belén Cuesta, Ingrid García Jonsson, Javier Botet and Gilbert Melki. The plot centers on Helga, an editor and train traveler whose seatmate, a psychiatrist and an expert in personality dysfunctions, recounts to her the worst case he’s faced: the sordid and crazy tale of an extremely dangerous paranoid man obsessed with garbage. The story leads Helga down an unpredictable path as she sets out on an investigation following her encounter. Morena Films’ Merry Colomer and Juan Gordon are producers with Sr & Sra’s Leire Apellaniz and Logical Pictures’ Frédéric Fiore.

Myriad Pictures has...

Spanish shorts director Aritz Moreno makes feature debut on mystery.

Seville International is launching sales at the Afm next week on the Spanish-language film Advantages Of Traveling By Train.

Morena Films is producing the feature and is ramping up for a production start in December and will shoot mostly in San Sebastián, Spain, with select scenes being shot in Paris, France.

Award-winning shorts director Aritz Moreno makes his feature directorial debut from a screenplay by Enemy screenwriter Javier Gullón based on the novel by Antonio Orejudo. Advantages Of Traveling By Train follows a young editor who takes her seat on...

A selection of Basque pictures, projects and productions in 2018:

70 Big Ones

Sayaka Producciones, Pokeepsie Films, La Panda Producciones and Setenta Invisibles L.P. Aie produce the next thriller from Basque genre specialist Koldo Serra (“The Backwoods”), starring Emma Suárez, Nathalie Poza and Hugo Silva. It features a desperate woman in need of $41,000, with two muggers in her way. Filmax handles world sales.

Above 592 Metres

Maddi Barber’s latest explores the life chances left when a territory is completely altered by the construction of the Itoiz dam in the Navarrese Pyrenees. Selected by prestigious shorts program Kimuak, “Above” screens at the 9th Zinemira Basque film showcase and competes for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award.

Advantages Of Traveling By Train

Acquired by Entertainment One’s Seville International and produced by San Sebastian-based Sr. y Sra. and Madrid’s Morena Films, this film, starring Luis Tosar and Pilar Castro, marks Aritz Moreno’s feature debut,...

San Sebastian — Based in Lyon, France Logical Pictures, proud of Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s “Farming,” has come on board to co-produce Aritz Moreno’s much-awaited directorial debut “Advantages of Traveling by Train,” starring Luis Tosar and Pilar Castro.

Sold internationally by Entertainment One’s Seville International, Filmax has picked up Spain’s distribution rights to “Advantages,” which is produced by Señor y Señora –an up-and-coming San Sebastian-based production house owned by Moreno and producer-director Leire Apellániz – and Madrid’s Morena Films, producer of Iciar Bollaín’s San Sebastian competitor “Yuli,” Daniel Monzón’s “Cell 211.” “Advantages” marks the first movie produced at Morena Films by Merry Colomer.

“Logical Pictures’ DNA is based on innovating and financing new forms of independent cinema. Therefore, betting on the adaptation of such a unique and quirky best selling novel, directed by a promising first-time director, sounded perfect for us,” Logical’s president Frédéric Fiore told Variety.

San Sebastian — Kicking off with a kinetic, slinking tracking-shot capturing the energy and Scorsese-ish voiceover of a young but caustic Ryszard Kapuściński during Angola’s 1975 Civil War, Basque animation movie “Another Day of Life” screens at San Sebastian in its best-of-the-fests Perlak section, rubbing shoulders with Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” and Damien Chazelle’s “First Man.”

Dazzling March’s Cartoon Movie and scoring a Cannes Festival Special Screening, “Another Day of Life” is a work of the highest artistic ambition, yoking the documentary passion of co-director Raul de la Fuente and multifold film means: Animation action, nightmares, flashbacks; and live-action cutaways, archive footage, and contemporary interview.

Yet “Another Day of Life” is also a mark of the Basque cinema’s drive into international co-production, in one of the most intricate and demanding pan-European partnerships of recent years, spanning a decade, with San Sebastian’s Kanaki Films involving partners from Poland...

A total of 36 projects will be in Berlin.

Source: X-Filme

Run Lola Run

The Berlinale co-production market (February 17 – 21, 2018) will welcome 36 new feature film projects that are looking for co-producers. In addition, five production companies will be introduced in the ‘company matching’ programme.

Projects include new films by Todd Solondz, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Aisling Walsh and Franka Potente.

Scroll down for lineup

Hundreds of movies have resulted from the previous fifteen editions of the event. Two films to emerge from recent editions confirmed for this year’s Competition section of the Berlinale are Figlia mia (Daughter of Mine) directed by Laura Bispuri and Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot by Philip Gröning.

For the 2018 market, 21 feature film projects with budgets ranging from €750,000 to €6m, were selected from 326 submissions. The projects, which will be presented by their producers already have either production support from their home countries, or financing of at least 30 percent in place.

Two additional film projects...

Film4 FrightFest will be screening a record twenty short films, twelve of them world premieres, at this year’s August event at the Vue West End, Leicester Square – including the latest from director Federico Zampaglione entitled Remember, the Fiona Dourif starring She (which I backed on Kickstarter many moons ago) and the second Jessica Cameron-starring production showing at Frightfest, the UK-lensed short The Tour.

Spearheading this year’s selection is the world premiere of Show Pieces, three tales of terror written by Alan Moore, the genius 2000 Ad writer behind Watchmen, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell and V For Vendetta. Moore has never previously written specifically for the screen, until now. Directed by his close friend and internationally acclaimed photographer Mitch Jenkins, this interconnected trilogy kicks off with. ‘Act of Faith’ in which a young woman looking for the next step in sexual excitement unfortunately finds it. ‘Jimmy...

Eight films to feature in the Zinemira section of the 61st San Sebastian FestivalScoll down for full list of titles

A total of eight feature films will make up the San Sebastian Festival’s Zinemira section, dedicated to cinema produced in the Basque Country. Five premieres and three titles produced this year make up the selection.

Four of the premieres will compete for the Irizar Basque Film Award, alongside films with at least 20% of Basque production and others presented as world premieres in any of the Festival sections. The Irizar Award will be decided by a specific jury and includes a $27,000 (€20,000) prize for the producer or producers of the winning film.

The Zinemira Award, granted by the Festival and the Producers Associations Epe/Ava and Ibaia to the career of an outstanding personality from the Basque film world, will go this year to Juan Bautista Berasategi, a cartoonist and producer from Gipuzkoa, and a pioneer...