Noticias

Netflix Spain and Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – popularly known as Los Javis – are teaming to produce a modern movie makeover of way before its time Spanish classic “My Dearest Señorita,” nominated for a 1973 Academy Award.

The adaptation was the biggest news at a packed-to-the rafters Next on Netflix showcase which took place in Madre on Thursday, where the U.S. streaming giant also announced a docu-reality series, “The Thyssen Baroness,” and released a first-look pic of “Superestar,” its recently announced six-part series inspired by singer and fleeting pop culture phenom Tamara.

Written and directed by Jaime de Armiñán, who co-wrote the script with José Luis Borau, who went on to become of Spain’s greatest directors of the ‘70s and ‘80s, directing “Poachers, ” the original comedy “My Dearest Señorita” starred top Spanish comedian José Luis López Vázquez, as a frumpy old maid in her ‘40s with an inexplicable talent...

Netflix has ordered another Spanish film, My Dearest Señorita, and unveiled a first look at upcoming dram series Superstar at an event in Madrid.

My Dearest Señorita, produced by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, is an adaptation of the 1972 Oscar-winning film of the same name directed by Jaime de Arimañán, who co-wrote the script with José Luis Borau starring José Luis López Vázquez.

The 1970s film was a romantic drama that explored themes of intersexuality, and was one of very few to tackle sexual orientation in General Franco’s ultra-conservative Spain. It won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 1973 Oscars.

“My Dearest Señorita is an adaptation,” said Calvo and Ambrossi in a statement. “Times have changed, and we believe it is a good time to revisit this story, a story of gender identity and wonderful, mainstream love. The creative challenge is how far we can update it without losing the essence.

Victor Erice, one of the greatest of Spanish filmmakers, will receive a prestigious Donostia Award, given for career achievement, at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The award will coincide with a screening of Erice’s latest film, “Close Your Eyes (Cerrar los Ojos),” which world premiered at Cannes in May.

Few awards seem more appropriate. The statuette will be presented to Erice by Ana Torrent, on the 50th anniversary of “The Spirit of the Beehive,” Erice’s multi-leveled masterpiece, which starred a 6-year-old Torrent and went on to win San Sebastian’s Gold Shell, its highest award.

It was Erice’s first feature, “Los Desafios” — a triptych anthology produced by Elías Querejeta and presented by a youthful Erice at San Sebastián in 1969 — that helped give San Sebastian a social-issue edge which it has never abandoned, compounded by “The Spirit of the Beehive” and José Luis Borau’s 1975 film “Poachers.”

Screening in the Cannes Premiere section,...

Above: Spanish poster by José María Cruz Novillo for The Garden of Delights.When the great Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura died in February at the age of 90, I searched through his posters to find a suitable piece to post as a tribute and came across several very stylized, diagrammatic designs for his early ’70s films. They turned out to be the work of José María Cruz Novillo, an artist I surprisingly hadn't been aware of previously, but who, I have since found out, is a titan of Spanish graphic design.Above: José María Cruz Novillo (right) with his son Pepe in front of a wall of his film posters. Photo: Fernando Sánchez.Cruz Novillo, who is still working at the age of 86 (in partnership with his architect son Pepe), could rightfully be called the Saul Bass of Spain. Like Bass, he excels in both film marketing and logo design. Since...

The dream child of 10 Basque businessmen who hoped to prolong San Sebastián’s summer season into late September, the San Sebastian Film Festival was born on Sept. 21, 1953.

Presented by bullfighter Mario Cabré, who romanced Ava Gardner, and comprising just 19 films, won by “La guerra de Dios,” directed by Rafael Gil., rescued from a potential Republican firing squad by Luis Buñuel not so many years before. Fireworks, bullfights and quayside parties regaled the film week.

From that first edition remain the beauty and gastronomy of San Sebastian, a Belle Epoque resort boasting the spectacular white-sand Concha Bay, steep-backed hills, an old quarter of higgeldy-piggeldy streets and a trio of three-star Michelin restaurants. 70 years later, San Sebastián still stuns.

For its first 20 years, held under dictator Francisco Franco, San Sebastián proved, however, a window onto a freer world for a privileged elite, a window onto a freer world graced by Federico Fellini,...

This year’s San Sebastian Film Festival is in mourning as Spanish director Mario Camus, celebrated for his sober but caring adaptations of distinguished Spanish novels such as “La Colmena” – written by Nobel prize winner Camilo José Cela – Ignacio Aldecoa’s “Young Sánchez” and “The Holy Innocents” by Miguel Delibes, died on Saturday in Santander, northern Spain, the city where he was born. Camus was 86.

Among his career achievements, Camus took the Berlin Golden Bear for best film with “La Colmena” (1983), a Cannes Prize Ecumenical Jury prize for “The Holy Innocents” (1984). Such films proved a highpoint in Spain’s ruling socialist left’s dream, pushed when Pilar Miró took over as head of Spain’s Icaa film institute in 1982, of maintaining Spanish cinema’s social edge but priming its production levels and taking it onto a European stage.

Camus also participated in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and at the Moscow Festival...

Influential Spanish filmmaker Jose Luis Borau died Friday in Madrid, the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences said. He was 83. Borau had reportedly been suffering from throat cancer. Though Borau, who was born in Zaragoza in 1929, only made a handful of films since his 1960 directorial debut "En el Rio," his talents were widely respected, and he received a Goya award for Best Director in 2000 for his final film, "Leo." Also read: Notable Celebrity Deaths of 2012 Borau was also a screenwriter and producer, and acted in some of his...