Spanish films have enjoyed a hot summer on the festival circuit, from Locarno to Venice, which premiered Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language feature and Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door, to Toronto and San Sebastian. The next wave of Spanish features are in the pipeline, with new work from heralded filmmakers including Alejandro Amenabar, Oliver Laxe and Carla Simón alongside the debut features from a promising new generation of filmmakers.
Los Aitas
Dir. Borja Cobeaga
The latest feature from seasoned writer/director Cobeaga is a 1980s-set comedy road movie about a group of fathers reluctantly accompanying their children’s team of rhythmic gymnasts on a trip from Bilbao to Berlin.
Cobeaga, who has credits including 2009 feature Friend Zone and TV series I Don’t Like Driving for TNT/Max, says the film is a dialogue between the 12-year-old child he was in 1989 and the parent he is today, including the evolving expectations of being a father.
“I am a parent and this is the first time I have written about fatherhood,” he says. “I realised that the story of Los Aitas is more about being a child and about how the model of parenthood has evolved from my parents’ generation to mine.”
Los Aitas, which shot this summer and stars Quim Gutierrez, Juan Diego Botto, Ramon Barea and Sofia Otero, is produced by Inicia Films, BTeam Pictures and Sayaka Producciones. BTeam will release it in Spain in 2005.
Contact: BTeam Pictures
La Buena Letra
Dir. Celia Rico Clavellino
Rico Clavellino’s third film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Rafael Chirbes. Set in a Valencian village just after the end of the Spanish Civil War under Franco’s dictatorship, La Buena Letra is about a woman trying to keep her family together.
“The story of the main character Ana moves me,” explains Rico Clavellino. “A woman who, like many others, tried to sustain her family during one of the darkest periods in our history. I thought of our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers, and the unique chance to make a film from the point of view of these women who did what was expected from them — cook, sew, be quiet, keep their families together, and sacrifice all their dreams and desires.”
The film, now in post, is produced by Misent Producciones, Mod Producciones and Arcadia Motion Pictures. The cast includes Loreto Mauleon, Enric Auquer, Roger Casamajor and Ana Rujas.
Rico Clavellino’s film Journey To A Mother’s Bedroom won the youth jury award and a special mention in San Sebastian 2018’s New Directors strand. Her second film Little Loves won the special jury and best actress prizes at Malaga Film Festival in March this year. La Buena Letra will be released theatrically in Spain by Caramel Films.
Contact: Mod Producciones
The Captive
Dir. Alejandro Amenabar
The latest from one of Spain’s most internationally renowned directors is always a cause for celebration. The Captive sees Julio Peña star as famed writer Miguel de Cervantes in a period drama set in 1575 when Cervantes was kidnapped in Algiers after being wounded in a naval battle. The experience apparently pushed him to explore his nascent literary talent before going on to write classic novel Don Quixote. Alessandro Borghi (The Eight Mountains) also stars.
“I will play with contrasts in this film,” says Amenabar of his eighth feature, which is now in post. The director’s The Sea Inside, starring Javier Bardem, won the Academy Award for best foreign-language feature in 2005. “From the tough reality of Cervantes’ life to the power of his stories, his attempts to flee the cruel conditions of captivity, the exuberance of the hammam [Moorish baths] and the buzz of the Algiers streets, Cervantes experienced it all and it fed the humanism and complexity of his work.”
The Captive is produced by Fernando Bovaira at Mod Producciones with Himenoptero, Misent Producciones and Propaganda Italia. Further backing came from Netflix, RTVE and Rai Cinema. Film Constellation is handling international sales.
Amenabar’s credits include romantic drama Open Your Eyes starring Penelope Cruz (remade in the US as Vanilla Sky), English-language horror film The Others starring Nicole Kidman and historical epic Agora starring Rachel Weisz. His most recent feature While At War (2019) was set during the Spanish Civil War.
Contact: Film Constellation
Close To The Sultan
Dir. Javier Rebollo
Set at the dawn of the 20th century, Close To The Sultan is loosely inspired by the life of Gabriel Veyre, an early camera operator who worked with the Lumiere brothers.
Veyre travelled the world, from Mexico and Colombia to Canada, Japan and China, and in 1901 went to Morocco, hired by a sultan who wanted to know what the Lumiere brothers’ invention was all about. Veyre ended up staying in Morocco until his death in 1936, where he made one of cinema’s first 16mm colour documentaries.
Close To The Sultan does not take a conventional biopic approach — it is “an auteur film, passionate and highly energetic”, according to producer Lluis Miñarro from Barcelona-based outfit Eddie Saeta. It stars Felix Moati, Ilies Kadri and Pilar Lopez de Ayala and is co-produced by Sideral in Spain and Noodles Productions and Paraiso Production in France.
Shot last year in Tunisia and now ready, the Spain-France co-production is Rebollo’s first feature since 2012’s The Dead Man And Being Happy.
Contact: Eddie Saeta
Deaf
Dir. Eva Libertad
Libertad’s debut feature Deaf (Sorda) is a love story focusing on parenthood and the challenges that arise when one young couple welcome a baby girl; Libertad’s fresh angle is that the mother is deaf. The director is hearing but her sister, actress Miriam Garlo, is deaf. Garlo stars in the film alongside Alvaro Cervantes and Elena Irureta.
“My sister started thinking about becoming a mother,” says Libertad. “We talked about it a lot, she shared her anxieties and expectations about motherhood in a world made by and for the people who can hear.”
The filmmaker tested the waters with a short film, also called Deaf, co-directed with Nuria Muñoz Ortin. It was nominated for a Goya in 2023 and caught the attention of producer Miriam Porté of Distinto Films, who jumped on board for the development of the feature. Co-producers are Nexus CreaFilms and A Contracorriente Films, which will also release Deaf in Spain. It is in post-production.
Contact: Distinto Films
Dear Nanni
Dir. Pablo Maqueda
Documentary Dear Nanni explores the work of Italian director Nanni Moretti and combines elements of travelogue, political documentary and road movie. It is a follow-up to Maqueda’s 2020 doc Dear Werner, which explored the films and influence of Werner Herzog.
Dear Nanni is produced by Viva Media Films, the company Maqueda runs with producer Haizea Viana, and will be distributed by Filmin and Elastica Films. It shot 30 years after the release of Moretti’s Dear Diary, the celebrated filmmaker’s semi-autobiographical comedy.
“Dear Diary changed my life,” explains Maqueda. “Nanni Moretti taught me how to hesitate before the camera, how to laugh at myself and realise that I will always be able to live happily inside his movies.
“Dear Nanni takes this wish to a practical level. To see how it would be to live inside Moretti’s films.”
Maqueda’s most recent fiction feature was thriller Girl Unknown in 2023.
Contact: Haizea Viana, Viva Media Films
Decorado
Dir. Alberto Vazquez
Animation maestro Vazquez follows Birdboy: The Forgotten Children and Unicorn Wars with Decorado, now in production. As is his practice, the filmmaker tested the water with a short film, also called Decorado, which was shot in black and white. That short premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2016 and went on to win the best animated short prize at the Goya Awards in 2017, the same year Vazquez won the best animated feature award for Birdboy: The Forgotten Children.
Vazquez is now filming the feature in 2D and in colour, with delivery set for 2025. It tells the story of a mouse called Arnold in the throes of a full-blown midlife crisis. He believes he is living in a world that is really a film set and fears he is being observed, in the style of The Truman Show.
Decorado’s nods to animation history include the choice of a mouse as the lead character, and a corporation called ACME (A Company That Makes Everything).
Producers Chelo Loureiro of Abano Producions and Ivan Miñambres of UniKo — who made Unicorn Wars with Vazquez — reteam for Decorado, alongside The Glow Animation Studio and Portugal’s Sardinha Em Lata.
Contact: Abano Producions
Frontera
Dir. Judith Colell
Now in pre-production, Colell’s period drama Frontera starts shooting in October around Catalonia. The original story takes place in 1943 in a border town in the Pyrenees when Spain is under Franco’s dictatorship. Miki Esparbé plays a customs officer helping Jewish refugees flee occupied France who realises his decision has put his family in danger. Maria Rodriguez Soto, Asier Etxeandia, Bruna Cusi and Jordi Sanchez also star in the film, which is written by Miguel Ibañez Monroy and Gerard Gimenez.
Frontera is produced by Coming Soon Films and Diagonal TV with Crespeth Films and Belgium’s Bulletproof Cupid. Coming Soon’s Marta Ramirez says the film is the company’s “most ambitious and international project to date”.
Colell won the special jury prize at San Sebastian in 2010 for Elisa K, co-directed with Jordi Cadena.
Contact: Coming Soon Films
Harta
Dir. Julia de Paz
De Paz’s short film Harta (Fed Up) won the young director the audience award at Malaga Film Festival in 2022. This summer de Paz has been making the feature version of the short, shooting in and around Barcelona.
The story explores how children struggle and adapt to new living arrangements after their parents’ divorce. Newcomer Kiara Arancibia stars alongside Janet Novas, Petra Martinez and Julian Villagran.
De Paz, who was a Screen International Spain Star of Tomorrow in 2023, points to Lukas Dhont’s Close and Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank as sources of inspiration. She wrote Harta with Nuria Dunjo and the project took part in Les Arcs Film Festival’s Coproduction Village, the Berlinale Talents Script Station and the Spanish Film Academy Residency.
Harta is produced by Astra Pictures, Avalon and Belgium’s Krater with Avalon handling distribution in Spain. Beta is handling international sales.
Contact: Beta Cinema
Romería
Dir. Carla Simón
The third feature by Simón after 2017’s Summer 1993 and the Berlinale 2022 Golden Bear winner Alcarràs again probes the theme of family relationships, inspired this time by the family of the director’s biological father.
Simón previously explored the story of her mother and adoptive parents in Summer 1993 and her adoptive mother’s family, peach farmers in Catalonia, in Alcarràs.
Romería begins as a young girl (newcomer Llucia Garcia) travels to Vigo in Galicia to meet the family of her late father, who — like her mother — died of Aids. Talking with aunts, uncles and grandparents, she tries to put together the story of her parents’ love. Everything begins to make sense when she falls in love herself.
“I am lucky to be part of a big family with plenty of stories that have become my source of inspiration,” says Simón. “I am fascinated by family relationships because we have to live with them, we don’t choose them. Family is the source of many conflicts and traumas but it’s also a source of love, trust and profound loyalty.”
The cast also includes Tristan Ulloa, Mitch and Celine Tyll. It is produced by Elastica Films (also behind Alcarràs) with Ventall Vinema, Dos Soles Media and Romeria Vigo.
Contact: mk2 Films
Sleepless City
Dir. Guillermo Garcia Lopez
Sleepless City is the first fiction feature by Garcia Lopez, a Screen Spain Star of Tomorrow in 2023. The film tells the story of a 13-year-old boy living in harsh conditions in a settlement on the outskirts of Madrid. Life is complicated further by imminent threat of eviction from the family home, all while his best friend is moving away.
Garcia Lopez has cast non-professional actors, residents of the real-life La Cañada Real, to star in the film, which is now in post. “I thought cinema could portray a world and people that have been left in the margins of society,” says the director, referring to La Cañada Real.
Garcia Lopez is a double Goya winner, for 2017 documentary Delicate Balance and 2023 short Aunque Es De Noche, also about the residents of La Cañada Real.
Sleepless City is a co-production between Spain and France through Sintagma, Buenapinta Media, Encanta Films, BTeam Pictures, Ciudad sin Sueño la Pelicula, Les Valseurs and Tournellovision. It was written by Garcia Lopez with Victor Alonso-Berbel.
Garcia Lopez took the project through several development labs and project markets including the Spanish Film Academy’s residency programme, Cannes’ La Résidence de la Cinéfondation and Berlin’s Script Station and Talent Project Market. BTeam will release Sleepless City in Spanish theatres.
Contact: Marina Garcia Lopez, Sintagma Films
Los Tigres
Dir. Alberto Rodriguez
Los Tigres is a thriller about a sister and brother, played by Barbara Lennie and Antonio de la Torre, who scratch out a living as industrial divers off the Andalusian coast. Their lives takes an unexpected turn on discovering a stash of cocaine in a cargo ship docked in the harbour from which they operate.
Rodriguez has forged a reputation as an accomplished genre director, with credits including Prison 77 and Marshland. Los Tigres is a Movistar Plus+ original, co-produced with Kowalski Films, Feelgood Media, Mazagon Films and Le Pacte in France.
The shoot took place this summer in Huelva in Andalusia and at Ciudad de la Luz studios in Alicante, where the underwater scenes were shot in the onsite water tank.
Movistar Plus+ is the pay-TV/SVoD service of Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica Group and is giving Los Tigres a theatrical release via Buena Vista International before streaming on the platform. It is part of Movistar’s strategy to move more directly into local Spanish production. Further titles include Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s El Ser Querido and Oliver Laxe’s untitled feature (see right). Film Factory Entertainment is handling international sales.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Untitled Oliver Laxe project
Dir. Oliver Laxe
Sergi Lopez and Bruno Nuñez star in the latest film from Laxe, playing a father and son who travel to the arid mountains in the south of Morocco, where a rave is taking place, in the hope of finding their missing daughter and sister.
According to Laxe, these characters embark on a journey that “will make them ask themselves important questions, to look into themselves”. The film stars a group of international non-professional actors alongside Lopez and Nuñez.
Laxe co-wrote the film with Santiago Fillol, with whom he worked on Fire Will Come (2019) and Mimosas (2016), both of which screened in Cannes. Laxe is a regular on the Croisette, where Fire Will Come picked up the Un Certain Regard jury prize.
This latest, as-yet-untitled film shot this year in Spain and Morocco. It is produced by Movistar Plus+ with Pedro and Agustin Almodovar’s El Deseo, Filmes Da Ermida, Uri Films and France’s 4A4 Productions. Berlin-based French electronic musician David Kangding Ray is responsible for the score. BTeam is releasing in Spain, with Match Factory handling international sales.
Contact: The Match Factory
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