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En la nueva película del hispano-chileno, Julio Peña da vida al joven Cervantes. © Disney

¡Grandes noticias! La película El cautivo, de Alejandro Amenábar (Los otros), tendrá su estreno mundial en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto (TIFF), que se celebra del 4 al 14 de septiembre, dentro de la sección Special Presentations. No es la primera vez del cineasta hispano-chileno en el certamen canadiense: Mar adentro y Mientras dure la guerra se presentaron en la misma sección.

El cautivo se sitúa en el año 1575 cuando el joven Miguel de Cervantes, herido en combate naval, es capturado en alta mar por corsarios argelinos a su regreso a España. Consciente de que le espera una muerte cruel en Argel si no paga pronto su rescate, Miguel descubre un refugio inesperado en su pasión por contar historias. Sus fascinantes relatos devuelven la esperanza a sus compañeros de prisión y acaban atrayendo la atención de Hassan,...

Estreno en cines en septiembre. © Disney

Ya tenemos el primer tráiler y póster de la película El cautivo, de Alejandro Amenábar.

El cautivo se sitúa en el año 1575 cuando el joven Miguel de Cervantes, herido en combate naval, es capturado en alta mar por corsarios argelinos a su regreso a España. Consciente de que le espera una muerte cruel en Argel si no paga pronto su rescate, Miguel descubre un refugio inesperado en su pasión por contar historias. Sus fascinantes relatos devuelven la esperanza a sus compañeros de prisión y acaban atrayendo la atención de Hassan, el misterioso y temido Bajá de Argel, con quien empieza a desarrollar una extraña afinidad. A medida que crece el conflicto entre sus compañeros de prisión, Miguel, impulsado por su inquebrantable optimismo, comienza a idear un audaz plan de fuga.

La película está protagonizada por Julio Peña (Berlín) y Alessandro Borghi (Las ocho montañas...

Estrenos muy diferentes para seriéfilos en Netflix, Movistar Plus+, Prime Video y más. ©SkyShowtime, Movistar Plus+ & AMC+ LA CANCIÓN (jueves 8 de mayo en Movistar Plus+) © Movistar Plus+

Mayo es el mes de Eurovisión, y antes de escuchar a Melody representar a nuestro país en Suiza, Movistar+ nos hace viajar al pasado con una miniserie de tres episodios que revive la primera gran victoria de España en el Festival. Veremos la historia detrás del mítico La, la, la de Massiel y todo lo que rodeó aquel inolvidable triunfo de 1968, con un reparto que se lleva, sin duda, 12 points, con Carolina Yuste como Massiel. Una serie para los eurofans.

Cara Feliz: LA Historia De Un Asesino En Serie (jueves 8 de mayo en SkyShowtime) © SkyShowtime

Basada en el infame caso del asesino en serie Keith Hunter Jesperson, aka El Asesino del Rostro Feliz, aquí interpretado por Dennis Quaid, esta serie true crime se...

Estreno en cines este otoño. © Disney

Ya tenemos primer tráiler de la película El cautivo, de Alejandro Amenábar.

El cautivo se sitúa en el año 1575 cuando el joven Miguel de Cervantes, herido en combate naval, es capturado en alta mar por corsarios argelinos a su regreso a España. Consciente de que le espera una muerte cruel en Argel si no paga pronto su rescate, Miguel descubre un refugio inesperado en su pasión por contar historias. Sus fascinantes relatos devuelven la esperanza a sus compañeros de prisión y acaban atrayendo la atención de Hassan, el misterioso y temido Bajá de Argel, con quien empieza a desarrollar una extraña afinidad. A medida que crece el conflicto entre sus compañeros de prisión, Miguel, impulsado por su inquebrantable optimismo, comienza a idear un audaz plan de fuga.

La película está protagonizada por Julio Peña (Berlín) y Alessandro Borghi (Las ocho montañas) junto a Miguel Rellán...

Spanish Salon

SkyShowtime has announced that production is underway for its new comedy series “Nails,” its third original series commissioned in Spain.

“Nails” tells the story of four women from distinct backgrounds and ages who meet regularly at a nail salon, leading to a transformative friendship. The quartet is overwhelmed by societal pressures to be “perfect,” which prompts them to question their lives and identities. As they grapple with chronic stress, they decide to rebel against their circumstances, which causes an emotional upheaval in their families. This rebellion culminates in the formation of The Free Women’s Club, a safe space aimed at helping other women navigate their challenges.

The show, filmed between Madrid and Bilbao, features an ensemble cast including Cristina Castaño (“Toy Boy”), Marimar Vega (“Las trampas del deseo”), Gracia Olayo (“La Mesías”), Teresa Cuesta (“Machos Alfa”), Fernando Tejero (“La que se avecina”), Javier Antón (“Vaya semanita”), Juanjo Cucalón...

Gracia Olayo y Fernando Tejero entre el reparto estelar de la comedia. © SkyShowtime

Arranca el rodaje entre Madrid y Bilbao de Nails, la tercera serie española 100% original de SkyShowtime, creada por Araceli Álvarez de Sotomayor, quien también ejerce como guionista y directora.

Nails cuenta la historia de cuatro mujeres de diferentes estratos sociales y edades que se conocen en un salón de manicura. Sus repetidos encuentros darán lugar a una curiosa amistad que las hará cómplices, hasta el punto de tomar la decisión más importante de sus vidas: dar un paso adelante y volver a ser mujeres como las de antes. Lina, Vanessa, Irene y Marilís son mujeres sometidas a un estrés crónico en su afán de cumplir todos los requisitos exigidos hoy para ser “perfectas”. Representan la feminidad de hoy. Pero, ¿qué ha pasado con su capacidad de elegir? ¿Son víctimas de lo que se espera de ellas? Estas...

Descubre todos los detalles de la película. © Disney

Comienza el rodaje de “El Cautivo”, la nueva película de Alejandro Amenábar (“Los Otros”) que narra las vivencias y aventuras del joven Miguel de Cervantes durante su cautiverio en Argel.

La película se sitúa en el año 1575 cuando el joven Miguel de Cervantes, herido en combate naval, es capturado en alta mar por corsarios argelinos a su regreso a España. Consciente de que le espera una muerte cruel en Argel si no paga pronto su rescate, Miguel descubre un refugio inesperado en su pasión por contar historias. Sus fascinantes relatos devuelven la esperanza a sus compañeros de prisión y acaban atrayendo la atención de Hassan, el misterioso y temido Bajá de Argel, con quien empieza a desarrollar una extraña afinidad. A medida que crece el conflicto entre sus compañeros de prisión, Miguel, impulsado por su inquebrantable optimismo, comienza a idear un audaz plan de fuga.

Featuring famed directors such as Argentina’s Ariel Rotter and Spain’s Benito Zambrano, who have not only played but won at Berlin and San Sebastian respectively, Malaga’s 19-pic out of competition strand is a testament to the buyer-driven pulling power of Malaga , thanks to its significant market.

Multiple other name auteurs pack out the selection, which also includes a far stronger line is broad audience comedies than most festivals would risk.

This is certainly territory for discoveries and breakouts – a healthy Málaga tradition.

A brief drill down on titles:

“La Bandera”

Director: Martín Cuervo

“La Bandera,” produced by Álamo Producciones Audiovisuales and Idesia Films, humorously unfolds a family’s inheritance dispute, in the sense that sons, Aitor Luna and Miquel Fernández, aren’t getting what they expected from their father played by Spanish veteran actor Imanol Arias.

“A Blue Bird”

Director: Ariel Rotter

Respected Argentine auteur Rotter returns...

New Amazon Prime Video series “Los Farad,” released Dec. 12, takes a look at the Cold War from one of its strangest geo-political hubs, 1980s Málaga. The action-packed show follows a family that is normal in many ways, despite earning a luxurious living as arms traffickers.

Part of a determinedly diverse and burgeoning lineup at Spain’s Prime Video, “Los Farad” is a high-profile prestige package starring Miguel Herrán – who plays Rio in “Money Heist” and Cristián in “Elite” – and the on-the-rise Susana Abaitúa, who delivered a tearaway performance in Netflix rom-com “Crazy About Her.”

Co-created by Alejandro Aménabar co-scribe Alejandro Hernández, “Los Farad” is directed by Mariano Barroso in his fifth collaboration with Hernández.

Emerging as one of Spain’s most notable drama series directors in an age of premium fiction, Barroso has extracted terrific, nuanced performances in series set in Spain’s recent past, such as “The Invisible Line” and “What the Future Holds.

Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks has nabbed worldwide rights to Spanish filmmaker Chiqui Carabante’s black-comedy whodunnit “The Fortress” (“La Fortaleza”) and is debuting its trailer ahead of the Cannes Film Market.

The film centers on the death of Arturo Viaplana and its aftermath as his offspring, hoping to inherit a great fortune, discover that instead of leaving them the estate, their father has devised a macabre, posthumous game in which his children must first locate his body and bury it themselves in a specified location. Working together to carry out their father’s instructions and pass a series of tests, the siblings are forced to come to terms with a deeply hidden family secret.

“The Fortress” is “the story of an inheritance” about a “game orchestrated by the deceased. The last one he performs with his children,” added Carabante, whose credits include “12+1, una comedia metafísica.”

“This film has the best of two worlds,...

Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s ’The Beasts’ has 17 nominations.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts leads the nominees for Spain’s prestigious Goya awards, with 17, followed closely by Alberto Rodríguez’s Prison 77 on 16.

The Beasts, which had its world premiere at Cannes, centres around a French couple who cause tensions in the local village to which they move. The psychological thriller is nominated in all major categories including best film where it lines up with Prison 77, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s Lullaby, Pilar Palomero’s La Maternal and Carla Simón’s Golden Bear winner Alcarràs.

Scroll down for the full nominations

Alcarràs is...

“El agua,” (Elena López Riera)

A Directors’ Fortnight title, the feature debut of Locarno winning López Riera (“Los Que Desean”), a fantasy-laced village-set critique of gender violence. S.A. Elle Driver

“Alcarràs,” (Carla Simón)

The 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner, Simón’s follow-up to “Summer 1993” and the flagship title for Catalonia and Spain’s newest filmmaking generation. S.A. MK2 Films

“Amazing Elisa,” (Sádrac González-Perellón)

The next from 2017 BiFan Grand Jury Prize winner González-Perellón (“Black Hollow Cage”), once more mixing fantasy and family dynamics as Elisa, 12, plans revenge after her mother’s tragic death. S.A. Filmax

“The Beasts,” (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)

One of 2022’s most awaited Spanish titles, playing Cannes Premiere, a Galicia-set thriller from Oscar-nominee Sorogoyen (“Mother”), produced by Arcadia, Caballo Films and Le Pacte. S.A. Latido Films

“The Communion Girl,” (Víctor García)

A revenge thriller involving an urban legend about a girl in a communion dress. S.

In February, Carla Simon’s “Alcarràs” walked off with Spain’s first Berlin Golden Bear in nearly 40 years as Spain notched up its biggest main competition presence at the Berlinale since 1997.

This May, Spain has four movies selected for Cannes – Albert Serra’s Competition entry “Pacifiction”; Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” in Premiere; Elena López Riera’s Directors’ Fortnight bow “The Water”; and José Luis López Linares’ “Goya, Carrière and the Ghost of Buñuel,” a Cannes Classics doc feature. That reps a Cannes presence roughly on par with recent standout years such as 2018 and 2019.

With Netflix launching “Through My Window” in February, three of the streaming giant’s five most-watched non-English language movies are from Spain.

The big money is now in TV. Meanwhile Spanish cinema, a darling of arthouse crowds during Spain’s 1975-1982 transition to democracy, is once more back on the international radar, though faced by huge...

Antonia Nava’s Barcelona-based Neo Art Producciones has teamed with Rome’s Pupkin Production to co-produce gay romantic drama “Si las paredes hablasen” (“If Walls Had Ears”), the feature debut of Spanish femme director, Ceres Machado.

Scheduled to roll by this year-end or the first quarter of 2023 in Barcelona and Rome, the film will be produced by Nava and Pupkin’s Rita Rognoni.

Spanish actor Fernando Tejero is attached to star in a cast that will combine Spanish and Italian actors.

Co-written by Machado and scribe Salva Martos Cortés (“Maniac Tales”), “If Walls had Ears” will narrate, in 10 sequences, a Barcelona and Rome-set story of intense love, passion and pain between two men.

They are Juan, a 50 year-old married man who hides his homosexuality, and Leonardo, a 23-year Italian who arrives in Barcelona to try his luck as a soccer player.

Over a decade, they will live their romance, but...

Madrid will provide the backdrop for a new production starring two comic actors at the peak of their powers, Carlos Areces and Fernando Tejero. Late March saw filming get under way in the Spanish capital and surrounding area for El club del paro, a new project for David Marqués following the hugely successful co-screenwriting gig that was 2018’s Champions — directed by Javier Fesser and Spain’s highest-grossing (and most lauded) film of the year, taking almost €20 million at the box office. For his latest project, Marqués has turned his writing skills to devising a plot peopled by characters played by Carlos Areces (recently seen in One Careful Owner), Fernando Tejero (featured in 2020 musical My Heart Goes Boom!), Adrià Collado (who appeared alongside Tejero in the TV series Aquí no hay quien viva), Eric Francés (Rosa’s Wedding), Javier Botet (who could forget his turn in the pitch-black Amigo), María...

The feature debut by Macarena Astorga, now in post-production, is a psychological thriller with a cast rounded off by Pedro Casablanc, Elvira Mínguez, Jesús Carroza and Fernando Tejero. Shot last August (once the state of emergency had been lifted in Spain), The House of Snails, the feature debut by Andalusian director Macarena Astorga, is a psychological thriller starring Javier Rey (seen recently in Secret Origins and El verano que vivimos) and Paz Vega, flanked by young Luna Fulgencio (Father There Is Only One) and a fresh face, Ava Salazar (the lead actress’s daughter). The cast is topped off by Peruvian thesps Carlos Alcántara and Norma Martínez, and Spaniards Pedro Casablanc, Elvira Mínguez, Vicente Vergara, Fernando Tejero and Jesús Carroza. The film, based on the novel of the same name, boasts a screenplay by the book’s author,...

Beta Entertainment Spain is joining forces with Nicely Entertainment, the L.A.-based outfit run by former Gaumont executive Vanessa Shapiro, to produce the TV thriller series project “The Tamer.”

The project, about a serial killer who tames and trains other killers to take down more of their kind, has attached Spain’s Paco Torres (“El vuelo del tren”) as writer, director and showrunner, alongside Mexican director of photography Guillermo Navarro, who won an Academy Award for Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

This deal marks an early incursion into the international TV drama production sector by Beta Entertainment Spain, the Madrid-based joint venture launched late last year by European film-tv giant Beta Film and Spanish producer Javier Pérez de Silva.

Bes is conceived as a bridge into the U.S. and Latin American TV markets.

“Partnering with U.S. and Latin American companies was a top priority for us.

Cesc Gay’s “The People Upstairs” (a.k.a. “Sentimental”), Nacho Álvarez’s feature debut “My Heart Goes Boom! (“Explota Explota”) and the series “Ines of My Soul” (“Inés del alma mía”), based on the book of the same name by Isabel Allende, will have their world premieres at the San Sebastian film festival in September.

All three are galas from Radio Televisión Española (Rtve), official sponsor of the festival.

Spain’s Gay had a hit with “Truman,” starring Ricardo Darin (“The Secret in Their Eyes”) and Javier Cámara (“Talk to Her”). The film world premiered at San Sebastian in 2015, won best actor for Darin and Camara, and went on to carve out sizeable box office in and outside Spain.

“The People Upstairs,” starring Camara, Belen Cuesta, Griselda Siciliani and Alberto San Juan, is the adaptation of a play by Gay himself, where a meeting between two neighboring couples ends in an emotional tsunami.

Latido Films has picked up international sales rights to musical comedy “Explota Explota” (“My Heart Goes Boom!”), a Spanish-Italian co-production, based on the hit songs by Italian singer Raffaella Carrà.

Produced by Mariela Besuievsky at Madrid-based Tornasol Films and Carlotta Calori at Rome’s Indigo Film, the movie marks the feature debut by Uruguayan-Spanish director Nacho Álvarez.

“My Heart” teams two Oscar-winning European companies: “The Secret In Their Eyes” producers Besuievsky and Gerardo Herrero’s Tornasol with Indigo, the shingle behind Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty.”

Spanish pubcaster Rtve is also co-producing.

Amazon Prime Video will offer “The Heart” after its theatrical release, which will be handled by Universal Pictures International Spain.

The film went into production in early November and will shoot for eight weeks in Madrid, Pamplona and Rome.

Set in the ’70s, it tells the story of María, played by Ingrid García-Jonsson (“Beautiful Youth”), a young...

Watch new clips from As Luck Would Have It (La chispa de la vida) directed by Alex De La Iglesia, staring Jose Mota and Salma Hayek IFC's drama screenwritten by Randy Feldman opened in limited theaters and VOD on February 1st Juan Luis Galiardo, Fernando Tejero, Tallafé, Antonio Garrido, Carolina Bang and Eduardo Casanova co-star. In As Luck Would Have It, Roberto (famed Spanish comic José Mota) once had a promising career in advertising. But now out of work during the economic downturn, he struggles to keep his family afloat and their dire situation a secret from his adoring wife Luisa (Salma Hayek). After yet another dead end interview, it seems like reality will come crashing down on Roberto – until a freak accident places him at the center of a wild media storm. Realizing his opportunity, Roberto hires a brazen agent to help him leverage his new found fame into fortune,...

Watch new clips from As Luck Would Have It (La chispa de la vida) directed by Alex De La Iglesia, staring Jose Mota and Salma Hayek IFC's drama screenwritten by Randy Feldman opened in limited theaters and VOD on February 1st Juan Luis Galiardo, Fernando Tejero, Tallafé, Antonio Garrido, Carolina Bang and Eduardo Casanova co-star. In As Luck Would Have It, Roberto (famed Spanish comic José Mota) once had a promising career in advertising. But now out of work during the economic downturn, he struggles to keep his family afloat and their dire situation a secret from his adoring wife Luisa (Salma Hayek). After yet another dead end interview, it seems like reality will come crashing down on Roberto – until a freak accident places him at the center of a wild media storm. Realizing his opportunity, Roberto hires a brazen agent to help him leverage his new found fame into fortune,...

As narrative, Bullet to the Head is amateurish. Villains awkwardly explain their plans for the benefit of the audience. Characterization is non-existent. Scenes are bridged by lame iMovie-style filter effects. Poorly Photoshopped stills are used to illustrate "backstory." The movie clunks along with no sense of dramatic tension or scope.

And yet in terms of how it handles light, movement, texture, and space, it's clearly the work of a master. Directing his first feature since Undisputed (2002), Walter Hill invests the film with all the hallmarks of his abstracted macho style: blunt comic-strip compositions; telephoto lenses that turn foreground objects into translucent smears on the frame; figures lit chiaroscuro against backdrops of neon; reflections rippling on water. Bullet in the Head may have a shaky sense of structure and plot, but it has a firm grip on action movie form.

Sylvester Stallone—looking more than a little like a gorilla taught...

Álex de la Iglesia's As Luck Would Have It (La chispa de la vida) has new images in the gallery. The drama stars José Mota and Salma Hayek as well as Blanca Portillo, Juan Luis Galiardo, Fernando Tejero, Manuel Tallafé, Antonio Garrido and Carolina Bang. The film opens Friday in select theaters, Cable VOD, SundanceNOW and other digital platforms. Roberto (famed Spanish comic José Mota) once had a promising career in advertising. But now out of work during the economic downturn, he struggles to keep his family afloat and their dire situation a secret from his adoring wife Luisa (Salma Hayek). After yet another dead end interview, it seems like reality will come crashing down on Roberto – until a freak accident places him at the center of a wild media storm. Realizing his opportunity, Roberto hires a brazen agent to help him leverage his new found fame into fortune,...

Álex de la Iglesia's As Luck Would Have It (La chispa de la vida) has new images in the gallery. The drama stars José Mota and Salma Hayek as well as Blanca Portillo, Juan Luis Galiardo, Fernando Tejero, Manuel Tallafé, Antonio Garrido and Carolina Bang. The film opens Friday in select theaters, Cable VOD, SundanceNOW and other digital platforms. Roberto (famed Spanish comic José Mota) once had a promising career in advertising. But now out of work during the economic downturn, he struggles to keep his family afloat and their dire situation a secret from his adoring wife Luisa (Salma Hayek). After yet another dead end interview, it seems like reality will come crashing down on Roberto – until a freak accident places him at the center of a wild media storm. Realizing his opportunity, Roberto hires a brazen agent to help him leverage his new found fame into fortune,...

Images from Lawless, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Brave.

There's also set photos of Gavin Hood at work on Ender's Game and Dwayne Johnson cooking a severed hand for Pain and Gain along with blue prints for The Amazing Spider-Man web shooters and twelve character posters from The Expendables 2

"Scarlett Johnasson has confirmed her Black Widow character will not be appearing in the upcoming third "Iron Man" movie…" (full details)

"Universal Pictures has pushed back the release of the Keanu Reeves-led '47 Ronin' from November 21st 2012 to February 8th 2013, while the Ryan Gosling-led drama 'The Place Beyond the Pines' has scored a September 7th release in Spain (no word yet on a Us date)…" (full details)

"James Franco says that he hopes Rihanna will play a small part in Seth Rogen's 'Jay And Seth Vs.

Fernando Tejero, Salma Hayek, As Luck Would Have It No Rest For The Wicked, The Artist, Un Cuento Chino: Goya Award Winners Pt.1 Best Actor Daniel Brühl, Eva Antonio Banderas, The Skin I Live In Luis Tosar, Mientras duermes * José Coronado, No Rest for the Wicked Best Actress Verónica Echegui, Katmandu: un espejo en el cielo * Elena Anaya, The Skin I Live In Inma Cuesta, The Sleeping Voice Salma Hayek, La Chispa de la vida / As Luck Would Have It Best Supporting Actor Juan Diego, 23-f: la película * Lluís Homar, Eva Juanjo Artero, No Rest for the Wicked Raúl Arévalo, Cousins Best Supporting Actress Goya Toledo, Maktub Maribel Verdú, De tu ventana a la mía Pilar López de Ayala, Intruders * Ana Wagener, The Sleeping Voice Best New Actor José Mota, As Luck Would Have It * Jan Cornet, The Skin I Live In Adrián Lastra, Cousins Marc Clotet, The Sleeping...

The Berlin International Film Festival has just announced the first five films lined up for the Competition and five more for the Berlinale Special. The 62nd edition runs from February 9 through 19.

Update: The Berlinale's also announced that the members of the International Jury, presided over by Mike Leigh, will be Anton Corbijn, Asghar Farhadi, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jake Gyllenhaal, François Ozon, Boualem Sansal and Barbara Sukowa.

Competition

Captive

France/Philippines/Germany/Great Britain

By Brillante Mendoza (Serbis, Kinatay, Lola)

With Isabelle Huppert, Katherine Mulville, Marc Zanetta

World premiere

From Ioncinema: "Based on a real-life event that occurred in 2001. It centers on Thérèse Bourgoin (Huppert), a French woman who works for a humanitarian organization on Palawan Island in the Philippines. While she is transporting equipment to Puerto Princesa, she is kidnapped by mistake with a colleague by Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf, who are fighting for Mindanao independence."

Dictado (Childish Games)

Spain

By Antonio Chavarrías (Susanna,...

Now that the fall “awards festival” circuit is finally at a close — but with Sundance looming in the distance — it’s easy to forget about Biff — the Berlin International Film Festival, that is. (See, I even have to give the name.) This might have something to do with their less-than-huge lineup; in terms of films playing in competition, last year’s biggest art house title was The Turin Horse, while the most mainstream was probably Margin Call. Nothing too slim, but not much compared to Cannes, Venice, or Tiff.

The first round of titles to play this coming February (via Twitch) do carry a few major titles, though. Among them are The Flowers of War (which we were quite ecstatic about), Guy Maddin‘s Keyhole, Extremely Loud…, Kevin Macdonald‘s Bob Marley documentary, and an expansion of Werner Herzog‘s Into the Abyss. A few other foreign titles carry potential,...

The 14th edition of the Málaga Film Festival (26th March - 2nd of April) considered one of the most important events here in Spain since it focuses exclusively on Spanish based production just took place and among the eleven films competing in the official section four of them gathered all the awards. “Cinco Metros Cuadrados” was the top winner with the Golden Biznaga for Best Picture and it earned awards for Best Actor (Fernando Tejero), Best Supporting Actor (Jorge Bosch), Best Screenplay and the Critics award. The film, directed by Max Lemcke (“Casual Day”) is a dramedy based on the actual events that took in Spain these past years about the rise in house construction and real state fraud. Basque film “Arriya” also followed the festival success of the previously mentioned film. also gathering four awards too, including Best Actress (Begoña Maestre), Best Costume Design, Best Original Soundtrack and Best Cinematography.

After the cold reception at the box office, mixed reaction from critics and only two tech award wins at the recent Goya awards with A Sad Trumpet Ballad a.k.a The Last Circus, director Alex de la Iglesia has commenced filming on “La Chispa De La Vida”. Based on an original screenplay by Randy Feldman (“Tango & Cash”), the film stars Salma Hayek (“Frida”) and Spaniard comedian José Mota. Although De la Iglesias has claimed this will be a dramatic feature film, in his own words ”…it has a lot in common with “The Last Circus” intentions wise. A strange story that also makes to think about “La Cabina” by Antonio Mercero in which it resembles story wise since it's about a man that has an accident and is left trapped in such a way that nobody knows how to rescue him, but in this case, the character being a publicist,...

MALAGA -- Strong ticket sales and vibrant word-of-mouth marked the 11th annual Malaga Spanish Film Festival as it hit its half-way mark Tuesday.

The event has become the country's main showcase for homegrown talent and commands a robust following from locals that fill theaters and congregate outside hotels eager to glimpse the mix of young Spanish sex symbols and veteran actors on hand.

In the span of the first four days, the event awarded lifetime achievement prizes to seasoned actress Concha Velasco and casting director Luis San Narciso. San Narciso's presence is particularly symbolic given the fact that he found the first TV roles for many of the best-known faces now on the big screen at the festival.

Javier Camara, Lola Duenas and Fernando Tejero, who co-star in Nacho Garcia Velilla's directorial debut, "Chef's Selection", represent a wave of television stars who have made the crossover to film successfully in Spain. "Chef"'s had audiences belly-laughing over the difficulties of a homosexual chef's efforts to mesh his paternity with his love life.

Call it the "Borat" effect.

From Belgium to Berlin and Paris to Rome, European comedians are breaking the small-screen/big-screen barrier and turning television fame into boxoffice gold.

Sacha Baron Cohen and his bumbling Kazakhstan reporter, a character Baron Cohen originally developed for his Channel 4 TV show in the U.K., and Rowan Atkinson's comic creation Mr. Bean are the most successful of those making the Euro TV-to-film transformation, but they are in good company across the continent.

"Mr. Bean's Holiday", the sequel to 1997 hit "Mr. Bean", topped the charts across Europe and as far away as Australia during its opening weekend and has generated an estimated $35.6 million worldwide gross. In most European territories, some of its toughest competition came from others segueing from TV to film.

-- In Germany, "Bean" replaced former No. 1 film "New From the Wanker", a comedy featuring local small-screen stars Oliver Kalkofe and Bastian Pastewka.

-- In Italy, "Ho voglia di te" (I Want You), a feature film adaptation of two hit Italian TV series that features a roster of small-screen stars, is at the top of the charts.

-- In Belgium, Flemish comedian Chris Van den Durpel has scored 200,000 admissions -- huge for the territory -- with "A Chicken Is No Dog", in which he plays an aging boxer, a character he developed for TV.

-- Spain's Fernando Tejero went from top-rated sitcom "Aqui no hay quien viva" (Who Could Live Here) to headlining sleeper hit "The Longest Penalty in the World" (2005).

France's Jean Dujardin jumped from Gallic television to film superstardom with a series of hits, including last year's James Bond spoof "OSS 117" and surfing blockbuster "Brice de Nice", and he will star in the hotly anticipated "99 francs". Countryman Jamel Debbouze went from TV comic to top billing in such hits as "Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra" and the Oscar-nominated "Days of Glory".

Then there is Britain, where police spoof "Hot Fuzz" has raked in more than $40 million in its first five weeks.