It is shaping up to be another strong year for Spanish filmmakers, with intriguing work from veteran and up-and-coming directors alike. Screen highlight the hot projects available in the market.
Spain looks set to deliver a contrasting range of films in 2024, from auteur cinema to mainstream productions that are directed by new and veteran voices. An ever-growing number of women filmmakers have films being sold at EFM, while internationally recognised directors shooting this year include Pedro Almodovar, Isabel Coixet, Fernando Trueba, Oliver Laxe, Carla Simon and Alejandro Amenabar.
In the meantime, the industry is also savouring the Oscar nominations for JA Bayona’s Society Of The Snowand Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams. The nods crowned an eventful 2023 for Spanish films on the international festival circuit. Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s 20,000 Species Of Bees competed at the Berlinale, winning the Silver Bear for best leading performance for child star Sofia Otero, while Alvaro Gago’s Matria debuted in Panorama. Berlin also premiered Lois Patiño’s Samsara in Encounters and Carla Subirana’s Sica in Generation 14Plus.
Later, Cannes hosted the premieres of Almodovar’s western short Strange Way Of Life, starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke, and Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes. Cannes also saw the debut of Creatura, the second feature by Elena Martin, in Directors’ Fortnight.
Coixet is back in 2024 with another film, teaming again with Penelope Cruz after 2008’s Elegy, for an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel The Days Of Abandonment.
Almodovar has confirmed the shoot of The Room Next Door as his first English-language feature, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, after abandoning A Manual For Cleaning Women.
Trueba is also expected to launch Haunted Heart this year, starring Matt Dillon, Aida Folch and Juan Pablo Urrego in a romantic thriller set on a remote Greek island.
Laxe (Fire Will Come) is also shooting his new feature in 2024, After, produced by El Deseo and Movistar +. So too is Simon after her Golden Bear win in 2022 with Alcarràs. Her new film is called Romería, produced by Elastica Films.
Beyond these titles, there are a string of intriguing Spanish films on offer at the EFM this year. Here are some of the titles to watch out for.
8
Dir. Julio Medem
The succinctly named 8 marks the return of director Medem (The Red Squirrel, Sex And Lucía), with a love story that unfolds over several decades of Spanish and European history. The two main characters, played by Ana Rujas (La Mesías) and Javier Rey (Fariña), are born on the same day in 1931 into families that end up on opposing sides of the Spanish Civil War. The story, written by Medem, consists of eight chapters. Morena Films (Champions, Everybody Knows), Eidan Produce and Quexito Films are producing.
Contact: Latido Films
Animal/Human
Dir. Alessandro Pugno
Pecado Films, producer of Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes, is behind this fiction feature debut from documentary director Pugno. The film explores the parallel but very different lives of a young Italian who dreams of becoming a bullfighter, and a calf that has just been born in sunny Andalusia.
Contact: Soul Pictures
Artificial Justice
Dir. Simon Casal
Tornasol Media, Abano Producions and Ukbar Filmes produce this sci-fi political thriller starring 2009 Berlin EFP Shooting Star Veronica Echegui (Fortitude) and Alberto Ammann (Upon Entry). Casal’s second feature revolves around a distinguished judge (Echegui) who must assess a government plan to automate the judicial system by replacing judges with artificial intelligence software.
Contact: Latido Films
The Captive
Dir. Alejandro Amenabar
The UK’s Film Constellation is becoming more involved in selling new titles from Spanish filmmakers. As well as offering Fernando Trueba’s Haunted Heart in the market, the company will introduce the next feature by another Oscar winner, The Others director Amenabar. Produced by Fernando Bovaira at Mod Producciones, Himenoptero and Misent Producciones, The Captive will recount the life of young Miguel de Cervantes when he was taken captive in Algiers — an experience that pushed him to explore his literary genius and eventually write the masterpiece Don Quixote. Propaganda Italia, Netflix and TVE participate in the $15m epic period adventure.
Contact: Film Constellation
Ellipsis
Dir. David Marques
Leo, a successful author of mystery novels, is busy working on his next book in an isolated house when a man claiming to be a journalist pays a visit, triggering a spiral of lies, betrayal and threats. This is the starting point of thriller Ellipsis, the first feature by screenwriter Marques, who co-wrote Javier Fesser’s 2018 box-office hit Champions. Ellipsis, produced by Morena Films, stars Diego Peretti (The Kingdom), Jose Coronado (No Rest For The Wicked), Georgina Amoros (Elite) and Cecilia Suarez (The House Of Flowers). It is now completed and is among Filmax’s market premieres at EFM.
Contact: Filmax International Sales
Glimmers
Dir. Pilar Palomero
Goya award-winning director Palomero saw her debut feature Schoolgirls selected for Berlin’s Generation Kplus in 2020, and has been busy ever since. Her second feature La Maternal played San Sebastian in 2022, and she is now finishing up a third: Glimmers, produced by Mod Producciones, Misent Producciones and Inicia Films. Patricia Lopez Arnaiz (20,000 Species Of Bees) stars as a divorced woman who re-establishes contact with her ex-husband (Antonio de la Torre) due to his illness, rekindling resentments she thought were long overcome.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Hate Songs
Dir. Alejo Levis
Two actors and a technician are gathered at a former Rwandan propaganda radio station to rehearse a programme that conveys ideas of peace and hope, but first they will have to overcome the terrible past that unites them. Levis’s third film stars Alex Brendemuhl (Creatura), Nansi Nsue and Boré Buika.
Contact: Sideral Cinema
The Human Hibernation
Dir. Anna Cornudella
The multidisciplinary director’s feature debut The Human Hibernation is billed as a “low-key science-fiction” tale set within a society that hibernates during the coldest months of the year. It centres on the search for a child who disappears after waking up prematurely from hibernation. Japonica Films (SXSW entry The Mystery Of The Pink Flamingo) and Batiak Films co-produce the title, which plays in the Berlinale’s Forum.
Contact: Gerard Rodriguez, Japonica Films
I’m Nevenka
Dir. Iciar Bollain
Bollain’s latest film is inspired by a real-life story: Nevenka Fernandez was 23 when she started working at the City Council of Ponferrada, a town in north Spain. Fernandez became a target for the media when she denounced the mayor for sexual harassment. Despite the controversy, in 2002 she obtained the first conviction for sexual harassment by a politician in Spain. Currently in production, I’m Nevenka is a Kowalski Films and Feelgood Media production starring Mireia Oriol (a Screen International Spain Star of Tomorrow in 2022) and Urko Olazabal.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Last Stop: Rocafort St
Dir. Luis Prieto
Showrunner Films and Nostromo Pictures (behind Rodrigo Cortes’s upcoming Escape, executive produced by Martin Scorsese) produce this horror title that follows Laura, a worker on the Barcelona subway, who has been assigned an old and quiet station. She discovers the facility is the centre of a chilling urban legend — many people have died there in strange circumstances over the years, and no-one seems to be interested in finding out the truth.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Little Loves
Dir. Celia Rico
Rico’s first feature Journey To A Mother’s Room premiered in San Sebastian’s New Directors section in 2018, picking up a jury special mention as well as the young jury award. Now Rico is back with another intimate drama between a mother and daughter, as they are compelled to spend a summer together after the parent suffers a minor accident. The problem is they cannot stand each other. Adriana Ozores and Maria Vazquez (star of last year’s Berlinale title Matria) lead a story “that is not so much about motherhood as it is about daughterhood, if such a word existed”, according to the filmmaker. Barcelona-based Arcadia Motion Pictures (As Bestas, Robot Dreams), also behind Journey To A Mother’s Room, is producing with France’s Noodles Production.
Contact: Latido Films
Marco, The Invented Truth
Dirs. Jon Garaño, Aitor Arregi
Marco, The Invented Truth is based on the true story of a Spanish man, Enric Marco, who acted as speaker for a Holocaust victims association and claimed to be a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. But it all turned out to be a complex and shameful fabrication: Marco hoodwinked not only the media but his own family and inner circle. Directors Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi team up again after The Endless Trench and Handia, and multi-Goya award-winning actor Eduard Fernandez stars as Marco. In post-production, the first promo is available at EFM as a market premiere. Moriarti Produkzioak, Irusoin and Atresmedia Cine are producing.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Memories Of A Burning Body
Dir. Antonella Sudasassi Furniss
Selected here in the Panorama section, Memories Of A Burning Body is Sudasassi’s second feature after debut The Awakening Of The Ants premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and was Costa Rica’s entry for the Academy Awards. Memories Of A Burning Body won the Copia Final in the WIP section in Ventana Sur. It follows Ana, Patricia and Mayela, who were raised in a repressive time where sexuality was taboo. Now in their sixties, they get to enjoy their desires having never discussed such matters earlier in life with their mothers, sisters and daughters. Substance Films and PlayLab Films co-produce.
Contact: Bendita Film Sales
A Moroccan Affair
Dir. Alvaro Fernandez Armero
Fernandez Armero (Spanish Shame) directs the third instalment of box-office hits Spanish Affair and Spanish Affair 2, teaming again with production companies Telecinco Cinema and LaZona. Comedy A Moroccan Affairfollows Carmen, who is determined to carry out the dying wish of Jose Maria, her husband and family patriarch — he wants to recover the first fishing boat of his fleet, which is currently anchored in a Moroccan port. The cast includes Julian Lopez (Undercover Wedding Crashers) and Michelle Jenner (Our Lovers).
Contact: Filmax International Sales
Reinas
Dir. Klaudia Reynicke
Sundance premiere Reinas is the third feature from Swiss-Peruvian Reynicke, who has appeared twice in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present with 2019’s Love Me Tender and 2016’s The Nest. Reinas is produced by Barcelona-based Inicia Films, the company behind 20,000 Species Of Bees, in partnership with Maretazo Cine and Alva Film. Reinas depicts Lucia, Aurora and their mother Elena, who plan to leave and seek opportunities in the US during social and political turmoil in Lima, Peru in the summer of 1992.
Contact: The Yellow Affair
We Treat Women Too Well
Dir. Clara Bilbao
Both a war thriller and a black comedy, We Treat Women Too Well (based on the novel by French writer Raymond Queneau) is the directorial debut of costume designer Bilbao. Set in 1945 in the Pyrenees, the story centres on Spanish resistance fighters to the Francoist regime who take refuge in a remote mountain village, only to be confronted by a woman who wants them dead. The film, now completed and produced by Ficcion Producciones and Noodles Production, stars Carmen Machi and Antonio de la Torre.
Contact: Filmax International Sales
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