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Led by Ana Endara’s widely acclaimed feature debut “Beloved Tropic,” this year’s standouts vying for the Panama Film Festival’s (Iff Panama) Audience Award includes such gems as Guatemalan Jayro Bustamante’s latest opus, “Rita,” Mexico’s Sundance winner, “Sujo,” Berlinale Best Director winner Nelson Carlo de los Santos’ “Pepe,” a smattering of documentaries and more animated features such as “Olivia and the Clouds,” sign of a burgeoning interest in Central America for the genre. Iff Panama runs April 3 – 6.

“Beloved Tropic” (“Querido tropico”) Ana Endara, Panama, Colombia

The opening night film. Winner of the festival’s Su Mirada post-production award last year. Director Ana Endara’s fiction feature debut is set in Panama City where it follows Ana María, a Colombian caregiver hiding a secret, and Mercedes, a high-society woman (played by Paulina García) facing early dementia. As their lives intertwine, they form an unexpected bond, navigating caregiving...

National Board of Review student grant-winning actor, screenwriter and director Constanza Majluf-Baeza is developing her debut feature “Pink Desert” (“Desierto rosa”), which will participate in the upcoming Maff Co-Production Fund and Meeting Event at the Malaga Film Festival.

Set in 1970 in a desert mining town in northern Chile, “Pink Desert” follows the story of Mariola, a 17-year-old known in the town as Mario. Sporadic rains bring bursts of life to the driest place on Earth, and in the midst of this landscape, Mariola gets invited by a theatre company of travestis to travel to Lima, Peru. During the journey, Mariola begins to discover who she has always wanted to be. Upon returning to Chile, a new era of political and social change drives her to affirm their identity.

In industry news, Peru’s Mestizo Studios has boarded the project, lead produced from Chile by Flamingo Producciones. To date, “Pink Desert...

Country in Focus: Spain at the Forefront, the European Film Market’s 2025 territory highlight, cuts two ways. TV will be spotlighted Feb. 17 in a Berlinale Series Market double-backed session, Spanish Thrillers, showcasing to works-in-progress titles, and Spanish Connection, where five projects are pitched to an industry audience.

For film, a Producers’ Showcase on Feb. 14 has 10 figures presenting their company and current projects at the Producers Hub. Another 10 producers form part of the Visitors Program at the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

For an analysis of what the companies and projects say about the current state of the Spanish film industry, please read the Spanish cinema Spotlight in Friday’s Variety print Daily. In the meantime, here’s a drill down on the 20 companies and key titles featured at Spain in Focus.

Producers Showcase

Alba Sotorra S.L., Alba Sotorra

Barcelona-based and now established as one of Spain’s leading and far-ranging international co-production practitioners,...

Local hits The 47 and Undercover lead the nominations for Spain’s 2025 Goya Awards, with 14 and 13 nods respectively.

Rock drama Saturn Return and Pedro Almodóvar’s Golden Lion winnerThe Room Next Door are also high up on the list of nominees.

The Goya winners will be announced at a ceremony in Granada on February 8.

Marcel Barrena’s The 47, produced by The Mediapro Studio, tells the story of a working-class community in the hills of Barcelona and its struggle to get public transport and better living conditions. It has grossed €3m at the Spanish box office to date.

The 47’s 14 nominations include best film,...

The 2025 Spanish Academy Goya Award nominations were unveiled today, where the big surprise was Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” being left out of the competition’s best picture category.

Although the film won’t compete for the ceremony’s top honor, its director and both his lead actors, Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, all received individual nods, Almodóvar for best director and the two performers for best actress.

Titles selected for this year’s best feature category include Marcel Barrena’s “El 47” – the most nominated with 14 nods – “La Estrella Azul” by Javier Macipe, “Saturn Return” from Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez, “Unddercover” from Arantxa Echevarría and “A House on Fire” by Dani de la Orden.

In the best director category, Almodóvar will face off against Goya regulars, including “Saturn Return” co-directors Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez, “Undercover’s” Arantxa Echevarría (2019 best new director winner for “Carmen y Lola...

Latido Films, a Spanish sales firm, is making waves in the worldwide film business by landing large distribution deals for a wide range of films. From dark comedies and thrillers to horror films, the studio is expertly navigating an industry still splintered in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Latido recently announced sales for five independent films, showing its ability to connect with viewers in diverse countries. Among these works is Carlos Marques-Marcet’s award-winning dark comedy musical They Will Be Dust. The film, which won the prestigious Platform Award at the Toronto Film Festival, chronicles the emotional journey of a terminally sick woman as she makes an end-of-life decision and the impact it has on her family. It has already been sold in Bulgaria, Taiwan, and Japan, and critics have praised its moving and relatable storytelling.

Another standout is A Whale, a supernatural thriller about Ingrid, a talented assassin with...

Leading Spanish sales agent Latido Films has closed a wide range of deals on several of the big indie titles in its catalog, including Carlos Marques-Marcet’s Spanish dark comedy musical “They Will Be Dust,” Pablo Hernando’s Sitges player “A Whale” and Bartosz M. Kowalski’s terrifying Polish thriller “Night Silence.”

Having recently won the Toronto Film Festival’s prestigious Platform Award, Marques-Marcet’s “They Will Be Dust” has sold in Bulgaria, Taiwan (Sky Digi) and Japan (M-Pictures).

In the film, Claudia is diagnosed with an incurable illness and decides to end her life on her own terms at a clinic in Switzerland. Her husband of more than 40 years cannot imagine life without her and it’s up to their adult daughter to mediate the situation. Despite the film’s heavy synopsis, “The only sadness that comes from ‘The End’ here is that the film itself has concluded,” reads its Variety review.

L.A.-based Outsider Pictures, a U.S. distribution hub for Spanish-language cinema, has snagged North American rights to three International Oscar entries to the 97th Academy Awards: Costa Rica’s “Memories of a Burning Body,” Spain’s “Saturn Return” and Switzerland’s “Queens” (Reinas”), directed by Peruvian-born helmer, Klaudia Reynicke.

In addition, it has picked up Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed” by Argentina’s Hernán Rosselli and Toronto Platform awardee “They Will Be Dust,” starring Chile’s Alfredo Castro and Spain’s Angela Molina.

“I think the recent acquisitions from Outsider reflect the exciting and challenging cinema being produced in Latin America and Spain. These may not be star driven or hugely commercial films, but like most independent cinema, they are labors of love, passion pieces that film-makers have worked so hard for and that any company would be proud to distribute,” said Outsider Pictures founder-ceo Paul Hudson.

Firmly established as one of Europe’s biggest dedicated showcases for movies from Latin America, Spain and Portugal, Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival celebrates its 50th edition with a bang, with a high-caliber main Competition, a new showcase on Spain. Following, some highlights and trends at this year’s festival, which runs Nov. 15-23.

Paz Vega: A Director is Born

Paz Vega will accept at Huelva a Premio Luz at this year’s opening ceremony. It comes at an opportune time. Known to date as a performer – star of Adam Sandler comedy “Spanglish” and Julio Medem’s carnal physiological odyssey “Sex and Lucia” – Vega has just bowed her first feature, the heavily autobiographical “Rita,” to upbeat reviews. Major plaudits to not only the central performance of the eponymous Rita, a loveable seven year-old moppet growing up in 1984 working class Seville, but Vega’s helming. “Rita’ is shot with an exquisite taste for light,...

Latido Films, the sales company on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts” and “The Platform,” has unveiled a slew of over 30 sales deals on a wide-ranging slate of titles, led by a U.S. pick-up on “All the Names of God,” a bouquet of transactions on “Aire,” the Dominican Republic’s Oscar entry, and an HBO regional licensing deal on “Saturn Return,” Spain’s Academy Award submission.

The deals are announced as Latido hits the American Film Market with Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s “Re-Creation,” one of its hottest tickets, and Toronto Platform winner “They Will Be Dust,” which has clinched an early sale with Taiwan’s Sky Digi, with others in the offing.

“We have great hopes for ‘Re-Creation,’ Jim Sheridan’s trial film. He has been incredibly committed to tell this story, who I think is probably one of his more personal since ‘In the Name of the Father,...

They Will Be Dust is Carlos Marques-Marcet’s fourth feature film, which made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Platform competition. The accomplished Spanish director assembled an impressive cast led by Ángela Molina and Alfredo Castro to tell a story that few would dare to bring to the screen.

Molina stars as Claudia, an elderly actress living with her long-time partner Flavio, played by Castro. When Claudia is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, she decides she does not want to endure the suffering ahead and proposes to Flavio that they end their lives together through assisted suicide in Switzerland, where it is legal. Flavio, unwilling to face life without the woman he loves, agrees to join her.

Their daughter Violeta and other children are shocked by the news. The film explores the varied emotional experiences and perspectives within the family as they confront their parents’ controversial choice.

The Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain recently concluded its awards ceremony, handing out prizes to films that used elements of different genres to explore meaningful social and political issues. The festival, which ran from October 18th to the 26th, recognizes innovative works that push creative boundaries in cinema.

French director Alain Guiraudie’s film “Misericordia” took home both the Golden Spike for best picture and Miguel Delibes screenplay award. According to the jury, the film balances genres and tones in a simple yet complex way. Beneath the surface of a small-town thriller and comedy lies a profound meditation on how desire and guilt impact human relationships.

Two Silver Spikes were also awarded, split between “Stranger Eyes” from Singapore and Spanish film “They Will Be Dust.” “Stranger Eyes” examines surveillance and isolation through its genre storytelling. “They Will Be Dust” presented the serious topic of euthanasia in a unique musical format.

Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia,” Carlos Marqués-Marcet “They Will be Dust” and Yeo Siew Hua’s “Stranger Eyes” all won big at Spain’s auteurist haven Valladolid Film Festival on Saturday, in a second edition under José Luis Cienfuegos whose prizes served as a vindication of the changes he has wrought at the festival as well as an indication of some ways European arthouse is going.

All three directors’ awards build on prior upbeat reception. Playing Cannes Premiere, “Misericordia,” which scooped Valladolid’s best picture Golden Spike and its screenplay trophy, was hailed by Variety as a “darkly comic backwoods fable of pansexual desire and small-town sociopathy” which marks a “welcome re-embrace of the streamlined murdery perversities of his terrific ‘Stranger by the Lake.'”

The Valladolid jury, made up of Greek director Sofia Exarchou, Spanish actress Aida Folch, critic and editor Devika Girish, German producer Ingmar Trost and Spanish director and writer Luis López Carrasco,...

The 2024 edition of the Valladolid International Film Week, also known as Seminci, wrapped on Saturday (October 26), giving its top award, the Golden Spike, to Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie.

Misericordia tells the story of a man who returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker, and decides to stay for a few days with the man’s widow, getting involved in a series of unexpected events.

Guiraudie also won the best screenplay award.

The members of the Valladolid jury, Greek director Sofía Exarchou; Spanish actress Aida Folch; American critic Devika Girish; Spanish filmmaker Luis López Carrasco...

Bound In Heaven, the feature debut of director Huo Xin, won the top prize at the 2024 Rome Film Festival, with the awards unveiled at the Auditorium Parco della Musica on October 26.

The domestic abuse drama won best film in the Progressive Cinema Competition, the festival’s competitive strand, and also shared the best first feature award ex aequo with Edgardo Pistone’s Ciao Bambino.

Bound In Heaven premiered at Toronto, and features a starry cast including Ni Ni, Zhou You and Liao Fan. Director Huo is a veteran scriptwriter whose credits include Shower, Kung Fu Hustle, Sunflower and The Monkey King.

The Valladolid International Film Festival, Seminci, will take place for the 69th time this fall, running Oct. 18-26.

To prepare, we’ve scanned the festival’s catalog for ten standout titles that attendees won’t want to miss at this year’s event. Below, we explain why each is a must-see proposition at this year’s Semicni.

“They Will Be Dust,” Carlos Marques-Marcet (Spain)

Opening this year’s festival is Carlos Marques-Marcet’s Toronto Platform winner, “They Will Be Dust.” In this tragicomic musical, a woman diagnosed with a terminal illness decides to go to Switzerland to end her life, accompanied by her partner of 40 years, Flavio. Seminci organizers praise the film as “an unexpected celebration of life itself and of the unconditional love of those who accompany us along the way.”

“Vermiglio,” Maura Delpero

Italy’s submission to the upcoming International Feature Oscar race, Maura Delpero’s intimate epic “Vermiglio,...

La película se hizo con el premio Platform en el Festival de Cine de Toronto. © Elástica Films

Ya se ha publicado el primer tráiler de Polvo serán, la tragicomedia musical de Carlos Marqués-Marcet. La película inaugura hoy la Sección Oficial a Competición de la Seminci (Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid), después de su triunfo en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto en la sección competitiva Platform.

En Polvo serán, tras serle diagnosticada una enfermedad terminal, Claudia decide hacer su último viaje a Suiza. Flavio, que lleva más de cuarenta años sin separarse de ella, decide acompañarla en este viaje sin retorno.

La película, escrita por el propio Carlos Marques-Marcet, junto a Clara Roquet (Libertad) y Coral Cruz (Verónica), está protagonizada por Ángela Molina (Los abrazos rotos), Alfredo Castro (El club) y Mònica Almirall (El médico).

En palabras del director, Carlos Marques-Marcet: «En esta mezcla de géneros, el musical...

Carlos Marques-Marcet’s Toronto-winning musical drama They Will Be Dust, will open the 69th edition of the Valladolid International Film Week, also known as the Seminci, on October 18.

The end of life drama starring Alfredo Castro and Angela Molina won the Platform section at TIFF last month.

Valladolid, headed by José Luis Cienfuegos for a second year, is a key launchpad into the Spanish market for local and international films.

There are a total of 22 titles in the running for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Spike that comes with a €70,000 award for the Spanish distributor. The Silver Spike...

The Rome Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 19th edition, which takes place from October 16-27.

Rome will present a lifetime achievement award to Johnny Depp, who will present Modi - Three Days on the Wing of Madness, about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, at the festival.

Viggo Mortensen will also receive a lifetime achievement award, and will present The Dead Don’t Hurt, which he wrote, directed and stars in.

Francis Ford Coppola will also be in Rome for a special ‘pre-opening’ festival presentation of the Italian premiere of Megalopolis at Cinecittà Studios – the Rome studio that hosted him...

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 exciting titles set to come out of Europe over the next year.

The directors who make up this group of contemporaries can no longer be called new, although many are still young and are arriving in the early middle of their careers. Most have prestigious award wins on their mantles already but still have an energy and urgency to their craft that makes their films must-watch fare.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated Catalan film on the horizon is Carla Simon’s “Romería,” the third part of a trilogy begun by 2017’s Berlin Best...

Tras su estreno mundial en Toronto, la película inaugurará la Seminci. © Elástica Films

Polvo serán, la tragicomedia musical de Carlos Marqués-Marcet, se ha alzado con el Premio Platform en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto, donde ha tenido su estreno mundial.

En Polvo serán, tras serle diagnosticada una enfermedad terminal, Claudia decide hacer su último viaje a Suiza. Flavio, que lleva más de cuarenta años sin separarse de ella, decide acompañarla en este viaje sin retorno.

La película, escrita por el propio Carlos Marques-Marcet, junto a Clara Roquet (Libertad) y Coral Cruz (Verónica), está protagonizada por Ángela Molina (Los abrazos rotos), Alfredo Castro (El club) y Mònica Almirall (El médico).

Atom Egoyan, presidente del jurado Platform, ha destacado «las conmovedoras interpretaciones de Alfredo Castro y Ángela Molina» y «la capacidad de la película para mezclar momentos de extremo patetismo con humor, única y completamente convincente» en «una historia cargada...

The winners for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival have been announced, with Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck taking home the People’s Choice Award.

Check out the full list of winners below:

People’s Choice Award: The Life of Chuck, dir. Mike Flanagan

People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award: The Substance, dir. Coralie Fargeat

People’s Choice Documentary Award: The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, dir. Mike Downie

Short Cuts Award for Best International Film: Deck 5B, dir. Malin Ingrid Johansson

Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Film: Are You Scared To Be Yourself Because You Think That You Might Fail?, dir. Bec Pecaut

Fipresci Award: Mother Mother, dir. K’naan Warsame

Netpac Award: The Last of the Sea Women, dir. Sue Kim

Best Canadian Discovery Award: Universal Language, dir. Matthew Rankin

Best Canadian Feature Film Award: Shepherds, dir. Sophie Deraspe

Platform Award: They Will Be Dust,...

Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck picked up the top People’s Choice honor Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival as its 2024 edition wrapped with renewed celebrity heat but still in the shadow of Venice and Cannes.

The Stephen King novella adaptation stars Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Karen Gillan and Chiwetel Ejiofor in a genre-tripping film about embracing hope in the face of tragedy and had a world premiere in Toronto. Flanagan in a statement thanked TIFF for the top audience award prize: “I’m absolutely overwhelmed. We’re so grateful that The Life of Chuck connected with audiences in such a powerful way, but never expected this.”

The second runner up for the People’s Choice Award was Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, a queer crime musical headed to Netflix that earned the jury prize in Cannes for the director, while the titular lead Karla Sofía Gascón became...

“The Life of Chuck,” director Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation starring Tom Hiddleston, has won the People’s Choice Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced at an awards ceremony on Sunday.

In TheWrap’s review of the film, Chase Hutchinson called it “less of a horror film than it is an existential grappling with the end — while also being a jubilant celebration of the moments that make life worth living along the way. It’s Flanagan’s vibrant equivalent of Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche, New York’ that finds hope and meaning in his own way just as it is one of the best modern Stephen King adaptations one could hope for.”

Unlike festivals like Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and Venice, Toronto does not give out a jury award to the festival’s top film. Instead, viewers at all public screenings are invited to vote for their...

The People’s Choice Award from the just-wrapped 2024 Toronto Film Festival has gone to The Life of Chuck, first runner-up is Emilia Pérez, and second runner-up is Anora. The Documentary Award goes to The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, and the Midnight Madness winner is The Substance.

Both runners-up Emilia Pérez and Anora were big winners at Cannes in May (the latter taking the Palme d’Or), but Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck was a TIFF world premiere and a surprise winner of this award.

Tom Hiddleston stars in the film based on King’s novella about three chapters in the life of an ordinary man named Charles Krantz. It is an unusual winner here for this award as it currently is looking for distribution and has no set release date, which means it could be the first People’s Choice winner in recent memory...

The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival has finally wrapped up, closing out a two-week frenzy of world premieres and screenings of highly anticipated offerings making their way across the international festival circuit. For many, TIFF (as well as the Venice and Telluride film festivals) marks the unofficial commencement of awards season, meaning the films that receive the People’s Choice Awards typically earn an early boost for their campaigns. Last year, the top prize went to Cord Jefferson’s publishing industry satire “American Fiction,” which would later earn the writer/director an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as a nomination for Best Picture. This year’s winner was Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation “The Life of Chuck,” starring Tom Hiddleston.

12 of the last 14 People’s Choice Award winners at TIFF went on to receive Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and four of them actually won the award.

Carlos Marqués-Marcet brings life to a grave situation in “They Will Be Dust,” realizing that when so many tiptoe around the subject of death, it might not be such a stretch to put an elderly couple in ballet shoes if they’re thinking it’s time to choose for themselves to shuffle off their mortal coil. The unconventional drama proves moving in more ways than one when following the septuagenarian pair that has booked a one-way trip to Switzerland, achieving a level of intimacy unusual even for its reliably sensitive director when music and dance can crack open what mere dialogue cannot.

Marqués-Marcet’s approach to his fourth feature may be unexpected, but the subject seems inevitable when the director has spent his previous three films considering different stages of life. After his impressive debut “10,000Km” involved a couple too young to see the issues that a long-distance relationship might pose,...

The Toronto Film Festival is awash with international titles. Led by Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig” and Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow,” the festival’s huge Centrepiece spread alone has 38 titles from outside Canada and the U.S. The Discovery section has another 18.

Not all Toronto international titles are world premieres, however. Here are 16 which are sparking good word of mouth. Variety isn’t claiming they are the best. The buzz might not be justified. But they are certainly worth tracking.

“Sunshine,” (Antoinette Jadaone, Philippines)

Anima, the Filipino studio behind Erik Matti’s Venice winner “On The Job 2: The Missing 8” and Sundance winner “Leonor Will Never” Die, joined Project 8 Projects to co-produce Antoinette Jadaone’s teenage pregnancy drama “Sunshine.” It turns on a young gymnast who discovers she is pregnant on the week of the national team tryouts. On her way to a seller of illegal abortion drugs,...

In “They Will Be Dust,” Carlos Marqués-Marcet, the Goya-winning director of “10,000 Km,” heads into a genre-bending exploration of life, love, and death. World Premiering at this year’s stacked Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform strand, the film is far from a conventional musical. It fuses contemporary dance and musical elements with the stark realities of a right-to-die story.

Co-written with Clara Roquet, whose “Libertad” garnered acclaim at both the Goya and Gaudí awards, the film is co-produced by Lastor Media, Alina Film, and Kino Produzioni— part of the same team behind Carla Simón’s Golden Bear-winning “Alcarràs.” Latido Films handles international sales.

The film centers on Claudia, played by Ángela Molina, who decides not to wait for her terminal illness to strip her of agency. Instead, she and her beloved Flavio embark on a plan to end their lives together in Switzerland. Their adult children are particularly appalled...

La película tendrá su estreno mundial en el Festival de Cine de Toronto. © Elástica Films

Polvo serán, la tragicomedia musical de Carlos Marqués-Marcet, inaugurará la Sección Oficial a Competición de la Seminci (Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid), que se celebrará del 18 al 26 de octubre, después de su estreno mundial en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto en la sección competitiva Platform.

En Polvo serán, tras serle diagnosticada una enfermedad terminal, Claudia decide hacer su último viaje a Suiza. Flavio, que lleva más de cuarenta años sin separarse de ella, decide acompañarla en este viaje sin retorno.

La película, escrita por el propio Carlos Marques-Marcet, junto a Clara Roquet (Libertad) y Coral Cruz (Verónica), está protagonizada por Ángela Molina (Los abrazos rotos), Alfredo Castro (El club) y Mònica Almirall (El médico).

En palabras del director, Carlos Marques-Marcet: «En esta mezcla de géneros, el musical tendrá la función de permitir...