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Upstart production house Catalyst Studios will digitally release its first feature, Colombian auteur Ana Maria Hermida’s all-star-laden magical realist drama “Alix,” on Dec. 25.

A U.S. theatrical premiere for “Alix” will be held at the historic Tcl Chinese Theater on Dec. 5, with Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the Art of Living, introducing the film.

The film’s imminent release kicks off Catalyst’s ambitious film slate, which includes six features directed, produced by and centered on female protagonists.

Written and directed by Hermida, whose 2013 short “The Firefly” was nominated for a Colombian Academy Macondo Award, “Alix” is set against the backdrop of the lush Colombian jungle and tells a story that intertwines the lives of Conejo (Roberto Urbina; “Narcos”), a battle-weary cynical soldier and Alix, a 12-year-old who is unwittingly enlisted to serve as a child soldier. The titular protagonist is played by young up-and-comer Cristal Aparicio...

You won’t have to wait 100 more years for Netflix’s adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s classic novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” — the two-part series premieres on December 11. Each part is eight episodes.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” (the book) was published in 1967; Márquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. The novel has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into more than 40 languages.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude (the series) was entirely filmed in Colombia with the support of the Márquez family. Like the book, it follows cousins José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán who are married against their parents’ wishes.

“Accompanied by friends and adventurers, their journey culminates with the founding of a utopian town on the banks of a river of prehistoric stones that they baptize Macondo,” the Netflix synopsis reads. “Several generations of the Buendía lineage will mark the future of this mythical town,...

Exclusive: Production, finance, and sales company Panorama Motion Pictures will make its Cannes market debut with a slate of projects from Catalyst Studios and other independent producers.

First up the company is producing ambitious project The Sea Hawk, an IP based on Raphael Sabatini’s book, which was most famously adapted into a hit feature by legendary producer Howard Koch and starring Errol Flynn for Warner Bros. in 1940.

The story follows an English gentleman through the changing tides of fortune and fate, who becomes a galley-slave and ultimately the most famous barbary pirate in the Mediterranean Sea. It will be produced by Panorama CEO Mark Pennell and Armyan Bernstein (Air Force One) of Beacon Pictures. Bernstein was most recently an EP on the Kevin Costner western Horizon, which is premiering in Cannes.

Producers are currently shopping for a director with casting targeted before the end of the year.

Pennell, a writer and producer,...

Exclusive: Catalyst Studios is producing and launching world sales on boxing drama Undercard, written and to be directed by Tamika Miller (Honor Student) and set to star Emmy winner Wanda Sykes in her first dramatic film role.

The movie will chart the story of a female boxing trainer (Sykes), who after abandoning her son, rises from the ashes to coach him in the biggest fight of his career.

The film is currently in pre-production, with Catalyst introducing the film to buyers at this week’s European Film Market.

Pic is co-written by Anita M. Cal and is produced by Anne Clements, Catalyst Studios’ Paul Kampf and Mark Pennell, with Catalyst Chairperson Holly Levow executive-producing.

Comedian and actress Sykes is best known for roles in History Of The World: Part II, The Upshaws, Monster In Law and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Her latest comedy special I’m An Entertainer was nominated for a Golden Globe,...

“Sound of Freedom” is being sold as a “conservative” thriller. It’s based on the true story of Tim Ballard, the former Department of Homeland Security special agent who has devoted himself to fighting child sex trafficking, and who took his crusade private when he founded Operation Underground Railroad, with backing from Glenn Beck. The movie stars Jim Caviezel, who in the 19 years since he played the title role of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” has been a go-to actor for the kind of faith-based projects the vast majority of Hollywood stars steer clear of. Wearing a trim dark beard and coppery blond hair, Caviezel plays Ballard as a beatific G.I. Joe meets George C. Scott in “Hardcore” meets an avenging Jesus.

The movie has a Christian undercurrent that occasionally becomes an overcurrent, as when Ballard explains why he’s fixated on the crime of trafficking: “Because...