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Two Basque movies screen in San Sebastian main competition, multiple others, from ever more notable and noted filmmakers, play other sections or grace Basque showcase Zinemira. A drilldown:

“Blue Files” (“Karpeta Urdinak”, Ander Iriarte, Spain-France)

Iriarte directs a doc investigating his father’s potential torture while in police custody. The investigations take the doc deeper into findings from Basque’s “Research project on torture and ill-treatment in the Basque Country between 1960-2014.” Produced by Gastibeltza, Filmak, and Iriarte’s own Mirokutana.

“Bi Arnas,” (Jon Mikel Fernandez Elorz, Spain)

A debut documentary from Basque journalist and teacher Elorz. Bi Arnas, meaning “two breaths,” features mother Maria Nieves Diaz and her daughter, Iratxe Sorzabal, who was a former head of Eta. It explores the alleged use of torture of Sorzabal by Spanish Police while in custody.

“Black is Beltza II: Ainhoa,” (Fermin Muguruza)

The sequel to Muguruza’s 2018 animated feature, following Ainhoa,...

In recent years, Spain’s Basque Country has emerged as a hub for fresh talent, something that directors Mikel Gurrea (“Suro”), Estibaliz Urresola (“Cuerdas”) and Irati Gorostidi (“Contadores”) credit to robust mentorship programs, governmental financing campaigns and ever-maturing production and distribution initiatives as well as a tight-knit network of professionals woven into the fabric of the local industry.

It’s an enthusiastic approach that fervently boosts new talent by firmly betting on strong local stories with universal appeal. Short films by up-and-coming helmers have gained traction, “Cuerdas” winning a Rails d’Or at Cannes Critics Week this year, while feature-length Ecam Incubator Selection “Lullaby,” directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, swept this year’s Malaga Film Festival, garnering rave reviews from critics and industry heavyweights.

Public-sector development initiatives such as the Ikusmira Berriak residency are integral to rise, create vast opportunities by providing mentorship, resources and space to fine-tune budding concepts.

Berlinale Talents Alumni Prepare to Shine in Cannes

It’s slowly edging towards summer here in Berlin and that means one thing: Cannes is close! And as the sun gets ever brighter, many of Berlinale’s former Talents are also preparing to dazzle on the Croisette!

Three alumni are starring in films in Competition; Sherwan Haji in Tarik Saleh’s Boy from Heaven, Sara Fazilat in Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider, which was produced by Sol Bondy and Jacob Jarek, and finally Nadia Litz joins the glittering cast of David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. Also in Competition is Lukas Dhont’s Close, co-written by Angelo Tijssens. Un Certain Regard provides a stage for more Talents to shine, with 17 alumni involved in 9 films, including Ariel Escalante’s Domingo y la niebla, to name one example. The film was edited by Lorenzo Mora Salazar, music composed by Alberto Torres, with Nicolás Wong Díaz acting as both producer & cinematographer. Abinash Bikram Shah’s Lori screens in the Short Films Competition, alongside two films with Zuolong Shan as executive producer, Bi Gan’s A Short Story and Story Chen’s The Water Murmurs.

Critic’s Week features 11 former Talents who have contributed their creativity to 8 films in the selection. The Woodcutter Story was in fact developed at our Script Station by writer and director Mikko Myllylahti, edited by Jussi Rautaniemi and produced by Jussi Rantamäki, the short Cuerdas was shot by Lara Vilanova and there will also be a special screeing of Goutte d’Or, produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond.

Excitingly, the Director’s Fortnight will show the debut feature films of three Talents alumni: Manuela Martelli’s 1976, edited by Camila Mercadal and produced by Dominga Sotomayor, Elena López Riera’s El agua and Pamfir by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk. Included in the selection is Un Varón by Fabian Hernández, which Louise Bellicaud produced.

To see the complete picture of all Berlinale Talents alumni at Cannes, including those selected for the Cinéfondation’s Atelier, Les cinémas du monde’s La Fabrique and the Acid programme, click here.

Reconnect in Cannes — Register now!

Building lasting relationships across all disciplines and editions is a crucial part of what we do. And since Cannes offers plenty of opportunities for long awaited informal encounters over a coffee or rosé, we’d love to build up the group again. If you are a Berlinale Talents alumni please register your attendance at the festival, market (or just on the beach) by clicking here. Who else is in Cannes? Find out here.

Dedicated to Discovery

The 17th edition of Talents Buenos Aires took place from April 19–23. Borrowing from Luis López Carrasco’s film of the same name, this year’s theme was ‘The Year of Discovery’. Drawing inspiration from the film’s exploration of Spain’s political and social crisis in the early 1990s, the programme’s aim was to promote critical and aesthetic thinking regarding recent world events and their influence on the film world. It was an engaging 5 days of events for the 55 Talents from all over South America, from workshops on non-traditional distribution with Maui Alena or on acting with Maria Laura Berch, to a dialogue on cinema as discovery with Darío Aguirre, and plenty of networking sessions. Welcome to the skilled film professionals who are now part of the Talents family, and congratulations to the team of Talents Buenos Aires on another great edition.

The preparations for Talents Guadalajara in June, Talents Durban in July and Talents Sarajevo in August are currently in full swing, and further out on the horizon, the 13th Talents Tokyo will be held from October 31 to November 5 within the Tokyo FILMeX Festival 2022.

Thanks for staying tuned and catching up!

The Berlinale Talents team

Upcoming Dates

May 6, 2022: Application deadline for Talents Guadalajara

May 31, 2022: Application deadline for Talents Sarajevo

May 31, 2022: Application deadline for Talents Tokyo

June 11–15, 2022: Talents Guadalajara takes place

Early July, 2022: Call for entries for Berlinale Talents 2023

July 22–26, 2022: Talents Durban Takes place

August 13–18, 2022: Talents Sarajevo takes place

October 31 — November 5, 2022: Talents Tokyo takes place

Photo credits:

1) Still from Close, co-written by Angelo Tijssens © Lukas Dhont / Diaphana Distribution

2) Talents Buenos Aires key visual 2022Berlinale Talents

Berlin International Film Festival

Potsdamer Platz 11, 10785 Berlin, Germany

Tel: +49 30 25920–515

www.berlinale-talents.de...

Reel Suspects has boarded “Vampir,” the popular Serbian actor-turned-filmmaker Branko Tomovic’s feature debut, in the run up to the European Film Market.

Penned by Tomovic, the film follows Arnaut, a man from London who is offered a job in Serbia to look after a cemetery in a small remote village. Arnaut soon starts having nightmarish visions and is frequently visited by a mysterious older woman, Baba Draga, who guides him into the darkness. Only the village priest seems to be trying to keep him safe from the sinister intentions of the villagers.

Now in post-production, “Vampir” shot primarily in English with some Serbian dialogue. “Vampir” was produced by Jean-Louis Alexandre at U.K. banner Red Marked Films, and co-produced by Milos Z. Vuckovic at Serbian company Dinaric Alps Productions and Dina Vickermann at German outfit Vickermann Films. “Vampir” stars Gorica Regodic, Joakim Tasic and Eva Ras.

Tomovic said the...

Stars: Mina Walker, Joan Glackin, Jordan Lage, Sandra Gartner, Ariel Zevon | Written and Directed by Barak Barkan

The horror genre has actually got a fairly decent history of using disabilities in its movie in a positive way. There are of course plenty of bad examples but there are also films like Hush, A Quiet Place and Ropes. Silence and Darkness deals with a family that involves a father who has a deaf daughter and a blind daughter and shows us how they live there lives.

The sisters relationship is a huge part of the story and it’s both brilliant and fascinating. Personally, the use of sign language always draws me into a movie, I know a little sign language myself and I know how important it is and I love to see it used prominently in a film. Here the sisters, Anna and Beth, show a special bond that...

The French sales agent has added Marc Fouchard’s film, which won the Grand Prix at the Cognac Crime Film Festival, to its line-up and will unveil it online at the 23rd Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. Specialising in "elevated genre", French international sales agent Reel Suspects managed to get through 2020, a complicated year for us all on account of the health crisis. Indeed, it inked some great deals for the thriller Ropes by Spaniard José Luis Montesinos and a real revelation in the Venice International Film Critics’ Week, the intense, warped Lithuanian war film The Flood Won’t Come by Armenian director Marat Sargsyan, among other movies. In addition, Matteo Lovadina’s team is about to play another trump card with Out of This World by Marc Fouchard, which will have its market premiere at the 23rd Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris, an event that, in a change to the usual.

As we approach International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3 December), we’re turning our spotlight on the representation of disabled people in film. There have been two good examples of this released in the past fortnight, with both Ropes and Run featuring heroines who have to try and survive dangerous situations while also dealing with paralysis, but while horror is increasingly acquitting itself well with this kind of representation, other genres lag behind. There’s also an ongoing problem with the absence of disabled people in smaller roles and among extras, which adds to a sense of general invisibility, a failure to recognise the world as it really is.

Not all the actors playing disabled people in these films are themselves disabled, and we’d like to see filmmakers try a lot harder to provide opportunities for the many talented disabled performers out there, but crucially these are all films that.

Stars: Paula del Río, Miguel Ángel Jenner, Jordi Aguilar, Ana Terrasa, Irene Terrasa | Written by Yako Blesa, José Luis Montesinos | Directed by José Luis Montesinos

There has been a handful of horror movies with paraplegic characters featuring in main roles. From Franklin in the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to Marty in the Stephen King story Silver Bullet, to the more recent Nica in 2013’s Curse of Chucky. The use of these characters has been mixed but in Jose Luis Montesinos’ feature film debut Ropes he puts the paraplegic character front and centre, in a new and interesting way.

We see Elena after a recent car crash which has left her in a wheelchair and struggling with life on many levels. Be it the car crash itself, the loss that occurred from it, her relationship with her father since or how she is coping with being in a wheelchair. All...

This year has seen every film festival struggling to find ways to present new films to their audience safely, without risk of infection, in the midst of a global pandemic. And after long and serious discussion, Grimmfest will be going ahead in a new format for 2020 – offering a roster of feature film premieres and shorts programmes across a new online platform.

Grimmfest’s live event at the Odeon Great Northern, Manchester, will be postponed until spring 2021. But fear not, a new online alternative “virtual festival” will run from 7 – 11 October 2020 and will present over 19 features, two short film showcases, and an exclusive Q&a with the Master of Horror himself, Mick Garris, who will also be receiving a Lifetime achievement award.

And what’s more, Grimmfest have released info on the first selection of premieres that will screen as part of the new venture. From the press release:

A focus on...

Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights to José Luis Montesinos’s Spanish-language thriller “Ropes” which world premiered at the Sitges Film Festival.

Represented in international markets by Reel Suspects, “Ropes” follows Elena, a young quadriplegic who is mourning the recent death of her sister and has moved to a country house with her father. While there, she has the help of Athos, a Belgian pastoral dog specially trained to help her. But the creature turns into her worst enemy after contracting a strange disease.

An up-and-coming director, Montesinos previously directed several shorts, including “El Corredor” which won a Goya (Spain’s highest film honor) and was nominated for a European Film Award.

“Ropes,” produced by Arturo Mendiz at Bastian Films and Carles Pastor, will be presented at the European Film Market during the Berlin Film Festival. Written by Montesinos and Yako Blesa, “Ropes” stars Paula del Río (“Retribution”) and Miguel Ángel Jenner.