No company has a more powerful spread of productions at this year’s San Sebastian Festival than Telefónica’s domestic platform and super-producer Movistar Plus+. The group brings a festival competition movie, “I’m Nevenka,” a premium drama series, “Querer,” a broad audience thriller series, “Celeste” and “Mugaritz,” a documentary feature about Spain’s most cerebral restaurant. The diverse […]

SAN SEBASTIAN — Barcelona-based Filmax has acquired international sales rights to “Time of Silence and Destruction,” a bio-doc feature about Luis Martín-Santos who, along with great friend Juan Benet, revolutionized the Spanish novel, as James Joyce and William Faulkner had achieved decades before outside Spain. Martin-Santos’ “Tiempo de Silencio” (1962) and Benet’s “Volverás a Región” (1967) not […]

Films Boutique has picked up international rights to Albert Serra’s documentary “Afternoons of Solitude” (Tardes de Soledad) ahead of its world premiere in the competition section of the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film marks the third collaboration between Serra and Berlin-based Films Boutique after “Liberté,” winner of the Special Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un […]

SAN SEBASTIAN —  Javier Bardem, at San Sebastián to pick up his 2023 Donostia Award for career achievement, announced he will star in “El Ser Querido,” the next film from Rodrigo Sorogoyen. The director’s “The Beasts” won a best foreign film Cesar Award in 2023, beating out four Cannes Festival winners.  Bardem will play opposite Vicky […]

Socially-conservative Japan seems to be in no rush to follow its neighbors in East Asia and roll out the pink carpet to the LGBTQ community or recognize same-sex marriages. But where the Japanese entertainment industry is slowly heading, courts and municipal authorities are following. The untroubled July arrival of the country’s first same-sex dating reality […]

“Hey Joe,” a drama in which James Franco plays a U.S. Navy sailor stationed in post-World War II Naples, will world premiere at the Rome Film Festival next month. The gritty film, directed by Claudio Giovannesi (“Gomorrah” TV series, “Piranhas”), is produced by Italy’s Palomar in tandem with RAI Cinema and Vision Distribution, which will […]

Johnny Depp will be honored with a career award at the Rome Film Festival, where “Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness” – his film about the final days of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani — will launch in Italy following its bow at San Sebastian. “Modi,” which stars Italy’s Riccardo Scamarcio as the […]

Filmmaker and editorial cartoonist Aurel will follow up his César-winner “Josep” with “Desert,” an animated Western set in France’s Cevennes mountain range.  Pitched between a more traditional oater and an “Indiana Jones” style adventure and set in the late 19th century, “Desert” will follow a Mexico-born gunslinger exploring south-central France with a mysterious mission. Rediscovering […]

Channing Dungey, Warner Bros. TV Group chairman and CEO, will deliver a keynote address at Mipcom in Cannes next month. The executive will participate in a fireside chat on Oct. 21 in the Grand Auditorium of the Palais des Festivals as part of the “C-Suite Conversations” series in partnership with Variety. Dungey took the helm […]

Everyone’s favorite reindeer is set to return for the third time in the hit CGI animated film “Niko – Beyond the Northern Lights,” with a clip (below) debuting exclusively with Variety. He’ll learn some important life lessons in the film. “I guess we like to make things difficult for Niko,” jokes director Kari Juusonen. Jørgen […]

Indian filmmaker Nidhi Saxena’s directorial debut “Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman” has unveiled a first trailer and poster ahead of its world premiere at the 29th Busan International Film Festival this October. The film will screen in the “A Window on Asian Cinema” section. The trailer offers a glimpse into a poignant world where […]

Opening up this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, Audrey Diwan’s “Emmanuelle” marks an unexpected follow-up to her Golden Lion winner “Happening” – at least on paper, anyway. If anything, the filmmaker followed a similar line, using a literary adaptation to emphasize sensorial experience, in this case the evasive quest for physical pleasure. “The project was […]

Catalan Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s best film win at Toronto’s Platform for “They Will Be Dust” points to a larger trend. Backed by generous government support, experienced producers and sales and distribution companies with impeccable track records domestically and abroad, there is a generation of Catalan filmmakers that is hitting its stride with some of the most […]

SAN SEBASTIAN — Is this the San Sebastián Catalan Film Festival?  Always boasting a sterling presence at San Sebastián, Catalonia has a massive 27 titles this year, counting five projects in doc forum Lau Haizetara and including four of the five Spanish movies in main Competition and 10 in Made in Spain. Following a break-down of major […]

Ahead of its European bow in San Sebastian as part of the fest’s New Directors Competition, Turkish writer-director Belkis Bayrak reveals the first look trailer for her riveting debut feature, “Gülizar,” shared exclusively with Variety. “It is, of course, an honor to be in competition at San Sebastian with my debut feature,” Bayrak relayed. “I can’t […]

Catalan films have impressed at festivals and awards ceremonies around the world for years now as the region continues to punch far above its weight in the screen industries. As the fall festival season transitions into awards season, we wanted to take a look at the buzziest Catalan titles set to make their debut sometime […]

LEVELING UP Sony-owned anime company Crunchyroll has acquired North American and select international theatrical rights for “Solo Leveling – ReAwakening.” The presentation represents a recap of the “Solo Leveling” anime series’ hit first season and a sneak peek of the first two episodes of the second season. Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment will bring “Solo […]

Finnish director Samppa Batal finds sadness in romance and romance in sadness in the Helsinki-set “Apple Thieves.” “I see it as a romantic dramedy,” he says. “I believe we should embrace sadness [in relationships] because it will come. The problems start when we refuse to admit it. I don’t remember when, but I have learned […]

SAN SEBASTIAN —  Beta Fiction Spain, the distributor of the opening and closing films at this year’s San Sebastian Festival, Audrey Diwan’s “Emmanuelle” and John Crowley’s “We Live in Time,” has tapped Arantxa Echevarría to direct its banner Spanish feature, “Dolores.”  Echeverría has already helmed for Beta Fiction “La Infiltrada,” about a police infiltrator in Basque […]