Cannes 2023: buzz titles from Italy, Spain and the Nordics

Spain

Film Factory Entertainment’s line-up is headed by Cannes Premiere title Close Your Eyes, a reflection on identity, memory and cinema from Victor Erice, a 1992 Cannes jury prize winner with Dream Of Light. The company will also be pre-selling horror film The Wailing, starring Ester Exposito (Elite) and Mathilde Ollivier (1899). It is the feature debut of Pedro Martin-Calero, who has co-written the project with Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s regular co-scriptwriter Isabel Peña. Lead produced by Sorogoyen’s label Caballo Films, it follows three young women who are haunted by an unknown evil entity. Film Factory is also market screening Blondi, the directorial debut of Argentinian actress Dolores Fonzi (Paulina), who also stars in the coming-of-age story of a 40-something mother. Also launching is Something Is About To Happen, a thriller with surreal comic touches, by Antonio Mendez Esparza, a Critics’ Week winner with Aquí Y Allá in 2012. Another title is Alejandro Marin’s debut Love & Revolution, about a Sevillian mother who decides to fight for LGBTQ+ rights in 1970s Spain, when homosexuality was still illegal, after her son comes out as gay.

Latido Films is screening All The Names Of God, starring Luis Tosar (Cell 211) and Inma Cuesta (The Bride). It is directed by action-thriller specialist Daniel Calparsoro (Sky High) and focuses on a taxi driver who is taken hostage by the only surviving terrorist of a jihadist attack. The Madrid-based sales agency is also pre-selling Javier Fesser’s Championext, the follow-up to box-office hit Champions — which had a US remake starring Woody Harrelson; Chinas, which sees Arantxa Echevarria (Carmen & Lola) once again address life in Spain’s minority communities; Saturn Return (Segundo Premio), a musical drama from double San Sebastian Golden Shell winner Isaki Lacuesta; and Belen Macias thriller Summer In Red, starring Jose Coronado (No Rest For The Wicked) and Marta Nieto (Mother).

Filmax’s slate includes market premieres of Lucia Alemany’s second feature Co-Husbands, a comedy starring Paco Leon (Carmina Or Blow Up) and Ernesto Alterio (Clandestine Childhood) about two husbands who meet when they learn their wives are in a coma after an avalanche. A second comedy, One Hell Of A Holiday directed by Victor Garcia Leon (Selfie), focuses on two grandparents who endlessly spoil their grand­children. The Spanish mini-major is also selling Miquel Romans’ Ashes In The Sky, about an anti-fascist Spanish republican who was forced by the Nazis to work in a concentration camp factory. Jumping The Fence is by Benito Zambrano, who directed Un Certain Regard feature Habana Blues, and is a reflection on the situation that many sub-Saharan migrants face waiting to enter Europe. Filmax will also pre-sell David Marques’s Ellipsis, a crime thriller centred on a writer of mystery novels.

Begin Again Films is bringing Monica Cambra and Ariadna Fortuny’s feature debut — and D’A Barcelona Film Festival winner — A Bright Sun, which follows a 11-year girl (played by Laia Artigas from Summer 1993) during the last days of Earth. Also screening is Nestor Ruiz Medina’s 21 Paradise, which world premiered in the New Waves section of Seville European Film Festival. The film centres on the romantic life of a couple who make amateur porn. Also screening is Pablo Riesgo’s Marco Polo, a feature debut about an antisocial young man who, after the death of his brother, learns to deal with his grief. 

FeelSales screens Rodrigo Demirjian’s autobiographical documentary The Legacy, about the director travelling to Argentina for the first time in many years for the funeral of his father, a renowned painter. It is produced by Tourmalet Films.

Bendita Film Sales will be selling Samsara, a jury prize winner in the Berlinale’s Encounters section, directed by Lois Patiño. 

San Sebastian and Barcelona-based outfit Soul Pictures is bringing Joaquin Carmona’s feature debut Last Wills, a thriller starring Fernando Tejero (Prison 77) and Nerea Camacho (Camino).

Italy

Rai Com brings My Summer With The Shark (Denti Da Squalo) directed by Davide Gentile about the adventure of 13-year-old Walter who wanders into an abandoned villa after his father’s death. Rai Com is also selling Neri Marcore’s Zamora, set in 1960s Milan, about a football-ignorant man who learns goalkeeping to ingratiate himself with his boss.

Minerva is selling Dovbush, directed by Oles Sanin, an historical action film narrating the story of a real-life 18th-century Robin Hood figure who heads a group of outlaws that robbed rich landowners in the Carpathian mountains to give to poor Ukrainian villagers. The Italian outfit is also showcasing Francesco Patierno’s feelgood family comedy And Suddenly It’s Christmas (Improvvisamente Natale.) 

True Colours brings thriller A Dark Story, directed by Leonardo D’Agostini. It stars Laetitia Casta as the former wife of an abusive man who she is accused of murdering. The company is also selling Supernova, a drama about a 17-year-old girl who discovers she has leukaemia and seeks out her long-lost father as a possible marrow donor.

Intramovies’ slate includes Light Light Light, Inari Niemi’s film about a Finnish village being shaken up by the arrival of a new girl in the summer of 1986. The Italian outfit is also market premiering Noam Kaplan’s The Future, about a renowned profiler recruited by Israeli secret services to investigate a young Palestinian woman accused of having assassinated an Israeli minister.

The Open Reel has Argentinian director Nicolas Herzog’s Elda And The Monsters, a trans-focused film featuring young musician Elda who aspires to become a glam-rock star while battling the young man with whom she shares her body. Its line-up also includes Barrio Boy, Dennis Shinners’ story of a barber living in a rapidly changing Brooklyn neighbourhood who embarks on an erotically charged odyssey of self-discovery. 

Illmatic Film Sales is selling Italian director Gianluca Manzetti’s debut feature Roma Blues about a man who finds a phone that contains proof of a crime. Illmatic will also start sales for Francesco Carnesecchi’s horror thriller Resvrgis, set amid a boar hunt.

Nordics 

 TrustNordisk has three films ready for market screenings: Fenar Ahmad’s Danish action thriller Darkland: The Return (already a huge hit at home) starring Dar Salim; Michael Noer’s cruise-set suspense drama Birthday Girl starring Trine Dyrholm; and Anders Walter’s Before It Ends, a Second World War-era drama starring Pilou Asbaek. Other hot titles with footage available are Mads Mikkelsen historical drama The Bastard; Handling The Undead, reuniting The Worst Person In The World’s Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie; Ole Bornedal’s thriller sequel Nightwatch — Demons Are Forever; and the latest Department Q thriller, Boundless. The company has just added big-scale naval war story Convoy, directed by Norway’s Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken, to its slate.

REinvent has boarded Stone Age-set action drama Stranger, the fiction directorial debut of Mads Hedegaard, which is produced by Motor. Angela Bundalovic (Copenhagen Cowboy) and Danica Curcic (The Chestnut Man) lead the cast. Mikkel Serup’s political thriller Kingmaker has just started shooting with a cast including Anders W Berthelsen and Nicolas Bro; the company has a one-minute teaser to show. Lukas Moodysson’s hotly anticipated Together 99 — set 24 years after the original hit story about an unusual commune — is in post, and REinvent has first footage to show in its promo reel.

LevelK’s slate includes Icelandic thriller Cold from director Erlingur Thoroddsen (Rift), exploring the contemporary repercussions of decades-ago deaths at a juvenile centre; the English-language Kafka-esque drama Mr. K directed by Tallulah H Schwab and starring Crispin Glover and Barbara Sukowa; Czech-Slovak mystery We Have Never Been Modern directed by Matej Chlupacek; and Annecy-selected stop-motion animation Tony, Shelly And The Magic Light.

The Yellow Affair has boarded Janis Pugh’s drama musical Chuck Chuck Baby, starring Louise Brealey (Brian And Charles, Sherlock) and set in a Welsh chicken factory. The film is part of the UK’s Great8 Showcase and The Yellow Affair has a promo. Another new title is Mark Leonard Winter’s feature debut The Rooster, a drama mystery starring Hugo Weaving. The company is also selling ‘black metal horror’ Nothing Holy, now in pre-production, from the UK’s Pinball Films, in co-production with Finland and Norway.

Eyewell has the first market screening of Latvian drama Soviet Milk, directed by Inara Kolmane and telling the story of a young doctor and mother who loses everything under the Soviet regime.

Rest of the world

From Germany, The Match Factory comes to the market with a record four titles in Competition: Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s gentle tragicomedy Fallen Leaves, Wim Wenders’ Japan-set Perfect Days, Alice Rohrwacher’s tomb-raiding feature La Chimera and Marco Bellocchio’s historical drama Kidnapped. The Cologne-based sales agent is also repping Lost In The Night by Amat Escalante, which plays in Cannes Premiere, and The Sweet East by Sean Price Williams, which is in Directors’ Fortnight.

Beta Cinema is pre-selling Jessica Hobbs’ The Offing, starring Helena Bonham Carter as a hard-drinking bohemian recluse who takes in hand a miner’s shy teenage son, having already closed UK, Australia/New Zealand and Benelux deals on the project. Beta is also pre-selling biopic Hammarskjöld (working title), starring Mikael Persbrandt, about the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld who was killed in a mysterious plane crash in 1961. The film is in post. Beta will also start pitching German director Andreas Dresen’s From Hilde With Love. Based on a true story, it stars Babylon Berlin’s Liv Lisa Fries as a young woman who falls in love with a man who is politically active against the Nazis. Beta is also giving market premieres to German box-office hit Simply Complicated, directed by actress/director Karoline Herfurth, and to German Kral’s Spanish language, Argentina-set social comedy Adios Buenos Aires, which world premiered at Miami Film Festival in March.

Films Boutique has three films playing in official selection. Iranian directors Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari’s Terrestrial Verses is premiering in Un Certain Regard, as is Brazil-Portugal production The Buriti Flower by Joao Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora. Meanwhile, Amanda Nell Eu’s Malaysian debut feature Tiger Stripes will premiere in Critics’ Week. Films Boutique has also launched sales on Mexican filmmaker Everardo Gonzalez’s documentary A Wolfpack Called Ernesto, which world premiered this month at Hot Docs in Toronto.

Picture Tree International is market premiering Marc Rothe­mund’s Weekend Rebels, starring Florian David Fitz, based on the true story of a father who gets closer to his autistic son through a quest to find his favourite football club. Also market premiering is Hans Steinbichler’s A Whole Life, from the novel by Robert Seethaler, and hit German movie Manta Manta: Legacy by Til Schweiger. Picture Tree is also selling German director Chris Kraus’s 15 Years, a sequel to his 2006 feature Four Minutes, and Dominique Deruddere’s The Chapel.

The Playmaker Munich is launching three new family movies. Florian Westermann’s Pirate Mo And The Legend Of The Red Ruby, a yarn about a pirate’s daughter growing up on a ragtag ship with a crew of sea dogs and the ship’s pet goat, is a new animated feature from the producers of Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice. Playmaker is also shopping Wow! Message From Outer Space, a live-action family drama currently in post. Directed by Felix Binder and produced by SamFilm, it is about a couple of kids shot accidentally into space. Ekrem Ergün’s Mission: School Of Fun is about a boy, bored at school, who comes up with outlandish ideas for adventure.

Global Screen is screening its romantic drama Falling Into Place, directed by and starring Aylin Tezel, about two 30-somethings who meet all too briefly over a winter weekend on the Isle of Skye and form a sudden and deep bond. The company is also beginning sales on its Casanova drama A Beautiful Imperfection, directed by Michiel van Erp and starring Jonah Hauer-King, Dar Zuzovsky and Sam Hazeldine.

Atlas International has documentary War & Justice, directed by Marcus Vetter and Michele Gentile, which looks at the work of Luis Moreno and his colleagues at the International Criminal Court who have their sights set on Putin’s war of aggression.

Media Luna is screening its Austrian period drama All Will Be Revealed, directed by Peter Keglevic, about a man returning to his hometown to look for his childhood love. Also screening is Martin Reads The Quran, in which a man asks a professor of Islamic studies to show him a passage from the Quran that says it is wrong to kill people with bombs. Directed by Jurijs Saule, it stars Zejhun Demirov and Ulrich Tukur.

m-appeal is selling risqué French drama Let Me Go, screening in Cannes Acid and directed by Switzerland’s Maxime Rappaz. Jeanne Balibar stars as a middle-aged woman whose desire for pleasure comes into conflict with her family commitments. The company is also selling its Brazilian drama Power Alley, screening in Critics’ Week, about a young star volleyball player who falls foul of a fundamentalist group after she seeks an illegal abortion.

Sola Media’s Cannes slate includes Aussie animated project Combat Wombat — Back 2 Back, currently in production, and Mikal Hovland’s Norwegian yuletide yarn Christmas On Cobbler Street, now in post-production.

Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales is screening Rachel Lambert’s Sundance title Sometimes I Think About Dying, starring Daisy Ridley. It is the story of an office worker who likes to think about dying but suddenly feels a spark with a new guy in her office. Also screening is Will Ashurst’s detective story A Mystery On The Cattle Hill Express, the third part in the Cattle Hill series. New Europe is pre-selling Ulaa Salim’s sci-fi love story Eternal about a climate-change scientist obsessed with getting the love of his life back. It is also pre-selling Peasants, the latest project from the creators of Loving Vincent, Hugh and DK Welchman. It is the story of a Polish peasant girl forced to marry an older, wealthy farmer, despite her love for his son.

Greece’s Heretic is handling sales for Belgian director Paloma Sermon-Daï’s fiction debut It’s Raining In The House (Il Pleut Dans La Maison), which world premieres in Critics’ Week. Heretic’s line-up also includes Radu Jude’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, Sundance special jury award winner And The King Said, What A Fantastic Machine and English language Palestinian/UK BFI co-production A House In Jerusalem, directed by Muayad Alayan.

Austrian outfit Fizz-E-Motion is developing horror feature Warm Water about six US students whose holiday by the lake takes a sinister turn. Other titles on its slate include Samuel Spisak’s romantic drama Be My Luck, Honey about an uptight woman’s adventures when she goes hiking in the mountains. The company is also selling Charles Guerin Surville’s drama Follia about a successful Italian director returning home to Sicily after a long absence.

Autlook has feature doc The Mother Of All Lies, a world premiere in Un Certain Regard, directed by Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir. It is also giving a market screening to Cannes Uncut, Richard Blanshard and Roger Penny’s documentary giving an insider’s look at the film festival, featuring Tilda Swinton, Ken Loach and Sharon Stone.

Dutch outfit Incredible Film’s slate includes Steven de Jong’s revenge drama Fight For Freedom, starring Milan van Weelden, about a 16th-century rebel and pirate who becomes an independence leader after the murder of his family. Also on the slate is romantic feelgood feature Rocco And Sjuul, aimed at an older, 50+ audience, and The Infinite Slime Movie, geared toward younger viewers.

Fellow Dutch sales agent Skoop has thriller #Annaismissing, directed by Pavel Soukup, about the disappearance of Anna, a popular influencer known for her controversial online content. The company is also presenting Ruud Lenssen’s feature doc The Hash King, My Father’s Story, about Jan ‘The Peanut’ Falize, who eluded police for many years during the 1980s and 1990s. It is also available as a two-part TV series.

Iranian Independents has a market slate led by Parviz Shahbazi’s Roxana, about lay­about Fred who falls in love with Roxana, a beautiful young artist; Majid Tavakoli’s Aziz, about an 80-year-old matriarch with dementia who falls in love with her own younger son; and Shahrareh Soroosh’s debut feature Wild, in which a woman goes back to her birthplace after many years away and is treated like a stranger by her family.

From Hungary, NFI World Sales is selling Semmelweiss, directed by Oscar-nominated cinema­tographer and director Lajos Koltai (Fateless). It is a period biopic drama set in 1847, when a mysterious epidemic is raging in a maternity clinic in Vienna. Other new NFI titles include animated feature Four Souls Of Cojote by Annecy 2005 Crystal Prize winner Aron Gauder. NFI is also selling Cat Call, the first feature film by Rozalia Szeleczki. The romantic comedy focuses on 30-year-old Fani, successful at work but lonely in her private life, who has a strange relationship with a talking black cat. Currently in production is Nora Lakos’s I Accidentally Wrote A Book, an adaptation of the children’s book by Dutch writer Annet Huizing.

Canadian outfit Attraction is presenting its Latvian family drama, Little Anna, directed by Uldis Cipsts and billed as a European take on Canadian classic Anne Of Green Gables.

Australian company Odin’s Eye is pre-selling horror movie The Devil Inside, in which Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease threatens to destroy humanity. The firm is also beginning sales on Tez Palmer’s thriller Ancestral, set in an Irish village in the 1600s in a world of evil, demons and alleged witchcraft.

• Cannes 2023: Screen dailies