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New month, new recommendations from Deep Cuts Rising. This installment features random picks as well as selections reflecting the month of March 2024.

Regardless of how they came to be here, or what they’re about, these past movies can generally be considered overlooked, forgotten or unknown.

This month’s horror offerings include a killer robot, a haunted mini-mart and more.

The Telephone Box (1972)

Pictured: José Luis López Vázquez’s character talks to a boy inside the namesake of The Telephone Box.

Directed by Antonio Mercero.

An obvious rec for International Find a Pay Phone Booth Day (March 10) is La Cabina (a.k.a. The Telephone Box). This Spanish, made-for-tv short-film turns a silly situation into surreal horror. José Luis López Vázquez‘s unfortunate character enters a freshly installed phone booth, only to then learn it neither works nor allows him to leave. As onlookers gather around and fail to help him,...

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.

Exclusive: Chavela Vargas documentary sells to Us and France.

Madrid-based sales agent Latido has scored key territory deals on Chavela, the documentary by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi which premiered at this week’s Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama strand.

The documentary about iconic Mexican singer Chavela Vargas has gone to Bodega Films in France and The Film Collaborative in the Us. A deal has been closed with Portugal (Leopardo Filmes), and Latido is reporting interest from Israel and Germany.

A bidding war is underway between two companies in Spain, which comes as no surprise considering the popularity of Chavela Vargas’ music in the country. Her songs are closely related to Pedro Almodóvar’s films and the director had personal involvement in the singer’s revival in the later years of her career.

Further titles on Latido’s line-up to have inked deals include Spanish war film Rescue Under Fire, which is set...

Spanish everyman actor who flourished in the country's post-Franco renaissance

The Spanish actor José Luis López Vázquez, who has died aged 87, was so much a part of Spanish cinema for six decades, appearing in almost 250 films between 1948 and 2007, that it seems inconceivable without him. Short and bald, with a little moustache, bearing a certain resemblance to Groucho Marx, he often embodied the average Spaniard. "I was an insignificant person, and I stayed that way," López explained.

As most of López's career was synchronous with Francisco Franco's 36-year repressive regime, when it was almost impossible for Spain to create a vibrant film industry and for talented film-makers to express themselves freely, the majority of his films were conveyor-belt comedies and melodramas, strictly for home consumption. Nevertheless, in the 1950s and 60s, despite restrictions, a distinctive Spanish art cinema managed to emerge, led primarily by the directors Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis García Berlanga and Carlos Saura,...