Leading Spanish production house Morena Films is teaming with A Contracorriente Films, one of Spain’s top indie distributors, and “The Beasts” French co-producer Noodle Productions to produce “Fairy Queen” (“Reina de las Hadas,” “Reina de les fades” in Catalan), a feature inspired by “Paris 70” which was shortlisted on Dec. 17 for the 97th Oscars. […]

Hit by last year’s Hollywood’s strikes, total box office in 2024 in Spain dipped 2% compared to 2023, breaking three consecutive years of recovery over 2021-23, Comscore Movies Spain announced Monday. At 71 million admissions, attendance edged down 5% compared to last year. At €477 million ($496.1 million), total box office in Spain was 29% […]

Beta Fiction Spain, the No. 1 independent distributor in the country this year thanks to a barn-storming €8.0 million ($8.3 million) box office gross from Arantxa Echevarría’s “Undercover,” is set to produce new films from Marcel Barrena and Dani de la Orden, directors of two other big 2024 Spanish breakouts: “El 47” and “A House […]

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 […]

Wild Sheep Content, the high-flying L.A.-based production-distribution house of former Netflix international chief Erik Barmack, is teaming with International Emmy winner Hernán Caffiero on “Raza Brava,” a fiction series described as diving into the dark underworld of the barra brava – a ferocious fan gang – of Colo-Colo, Chile’s most popular football team.  Backed by […]

Marisa Paredes, a grand dame of Spanish cinema, died on Tuesday in Madrid from heart failure. She was 78. While she acted in 75 movies, she will be best remembered for the five films she starred in directed by Pedro Almodóvar: “Dark Habits” (1983), “High Heels” (1991), “The Flower of My Secret” (1995), “All About […]

Madrid-based Álvaro Brechner, “one of the leading South American screen talents to emerge in the last decade,” Variety wrote in a review of his Venice-selected “A Twelve-Year Night,” is attached to direct “Mägo de Oz, La Película” a big-scale bio of the Spanish folk metal band.   Behind Cannes Critics’ Week player “Bad Day to Go Fishing,” sales […]

TV powerhouse Beta Film has closed a weighty deal with Australian public broadcaster Special Broadcasting Service. (SBS)  Totalling nearly 200 hours of entertainment, the deal is led by RAI 2023 event series “Elsa Morante’s La Storia,” recently sold to the U.S. and Canada (MHz Choice), Canneswinner “Operation Sabre,” made for Radio Television of Serbia, Seriencamp […]

Algerian director Merzak Allouache received the Variety International Vanguard Director Award at the Red Sea Film Festival over the weekend, prior to the premiere of his social comedy, “Front Row,” about a feud between matriarchs vying for the best spot at the beach. Allouache is Algeria’s best-known director, with a career spanning six decades and […]