News

Winner of a Spanish Academy supporting actress Goya Award for “Marshland” and nominated for a 2023 best doc short Spanish Academy Goya Award for “Memory,” which she also directed, Nerea Barros, star of “The Gypsy Bride” is preparing “The Coast” (“La Costa”) which will mark her directorial feature debut.

Also written by Barros, “The Coast” will make its market debut in March at the 2024 Malaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (Maff). Its news comes little more than a month after the end of the run on Nov. 29 of Atresplayer of “La Red Purpura,” the second part of a crime trilogy begun with “The Gypsy Bride,” which both star Barros and have consolidated her reputation as one of Spain’s finest actors of her generation.

“I am an actress, but for years I have felt the need to give shape to my obsessions, the legacy of the elderly, climate change and women, through art.

Born in Gaza is a Spanish documentary directed by Hernán Zin, released in 2014 and filmed in the aftermath of the Gaza War. "With just a camera and almost no budget" – according to Zin's IndieGoGo page that aims to fund a follow-up film – viewers look deep into the crisis of Gaza, Palestine's largest city, as told by ten children. Almost ten years later, global attention has turned towards Palestine and Israel again after the recent attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023 – though this wasn't the beginning of the Palestine-Israel conflict. As the Israel-Hamas War has continued, many voices have called out what has since been happening to Palestine (at Israel's hands) as genocide.

Watching Born in Gaza can introduce viewers to a situation that many people still don't or won't comprehend. Currently available to stream on Netflix, the documentary is easily accessible for so many viewers. While it obviously...

Director-producer David Beriáin, one of the key figures on Spain’s new documentary scene, was killed on Monday while making an anti-poaching documentary in Burkina Faso.

Beriáin, accompanied by cameraman Roberto Fraile, was traveling in a convoy near the Arli National Park when it was attacked by armed men who arrived in two trucks and a dozen motorbikes, according to El País.

The Spanish newspaper added that Beriáin and Fraile had got out of one of the convoy’s trucks to launch a drone in order to take aerial photos when the attack began. Both lost their lives, as did Ireland’s Rory Young, director of the Fundación Chungeta Wildlife, an Ngo.

Beriáin and Fraile had both been working on a documentary about the Burkina Faso government’s attempt to crack down on poaching in its national parks.

The murder is attributed, however, to jihadists by The Guardian, which points...

Nick Waterman’s The Flame has lit up the 30th annual Flickerfest in Sydney, awarded Best Australian Short Film at the festival’s awards ceremony on Sunday.

Other winners included Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Dev Patel’s Roborovski, which was crowned Best Australian Short Animation, and Naomi Fryer, who won Best Direction in an Australian Short Film for her work on River.

The Flame, which was directed in collaboration with Dayannah Baker Barlow, Tyrese Fernando and Lance Whitton Jr, is about a young boy and girl in a remote town who remember a time before a cold wind first swept across the land; when fire meant something different.

The film was written by Nick Waterman, Megan Washington, Dayannah Baker Barlow, Tyrese Fernando, Paul Spearim, Connie Taylor, and Lance Whitton Jr, and produced by Beyond Empathy.

It was one of four Australian films to be selected for last year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

The filmmaker reflects on how the health crisis will affect humankind’s evolution in this high-definition, highly aesthetic movie, which journeys around places rendered lonesome by the lockdown. Juan Cavestany (see the news) and Hernán Zin (see the news) have both been making films in Spain during the coronavirus crisis, and now they are joined by the new feature by Lucas Figureoa (Viral), entitled Renaceres a 8K (lit. “Rebirths in 8K”). This multidisciplinary project comprises a documentary feature, a series, an exhibition and a literary experiment. Revolving around the landscapes and places rendered lonesome and desolate by the lockdown, the movie reflects on how traumatic historical events such as the one we have recently been contending with affect our nature as humans and our decisions, while simultaneously opening up prospects of hope and improvement in the future as life and normality start to return. But it won’t all be empty cities,...

The filmmaker and reporter has finished filming his new documentary, in which he portrays the anonymous heroes who have been fighting the ongoing pandemic in the Spanish capital. Hernán Zin has come face to face with various military conflicts while making his previous, Goya-nominated documentaries Born in Gaza and Born in Syria, but never before was the enemy invisible like it is now, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, during which he has shot his new film, Madrid resiste. While making it, he closely accompanied seven anonymous heroes over the course of two months: among them are an internal medicine specialist in the intensive care unit, a fireman, an ambulance driver and a woman who rescues the pets of people who have died from coronavirus. “We’ve been shining the spotlight on the truly important people, those who we only really appreciate when we need them or when we’re sick.

Profiles of major Spanish shows at Mipcom. S: International distribution.

3 Caminos

(Ficción Producciones, Beta Film)

Five friends of different nationalities connect on the St. James Way. An Amazon Prime Vídeo pickup, shooting from February.

S: Beta Film

Caronte

(Mediaset España, Big Bang Media)

Legal procedural from Verónica Fernández, creator of Netflix’s upcoming “Hache,” about an ex-cop and an ex-con turned criminal lawyer. Acquired by Amazon for worldwide streaming.

S: Mediterráneo Mediaset España Group, Imagina International Sales

The Countryside

(Mediaset España, Contubernio)

Vegan, choral comedy created by Alberto Caballero (“La que se avecina”) Premiered on Amazon Prime Video España then Mediaset España channels.

S: Mediterráneo

Central Market

(Rtve, Diagonal TV)

Serial from producers of post-Civil War soap“Love in Difficult Times.” A slice of life take on workers at a major city market. S: Rtve

Dangerous Moms

(Mediaset España, Mandarina Producciones)

Black comedy series marking Mediaset España’s best fiction release in five years.

45 Revolutions

(Atresmedia, Bambú Producciones)

The birth of a new rock record label in Spain’s conservative early ’60s.

Sa: A3Media Sales

Costa Del Sol Brigade

(Mediaset, Warner Bros. Itvp Spain, Netflix)

A MipDrama Buyers’ Summit entry. A facts-inspired cop thriller chronicling an early Spanish anti-narcotics squad.

Sa: Warner Bros. Itvp Spain

Dangerous Moms

(Mediaset, Producciones Mandarina)

A black crime farce in which four mothers are embroiled in accidental murder. Mediaset’s second MipDrama Summit contender.

Sa: Mediterráneo

Garbo, The Spy Who Double-crossed Hitler

(Portocabo, Vaca Films, Fearless Minds, Banijay Studios France)

Historical thriller mini-series inspired by the extraordinary life of WWII double agent Juan Pujol. Development

Hierro

(Movistar +, Arte France, Portocabo, Atlantique Productions)

The first Movistar + international co-production; a murder investigation set against spectacular landscapes of the titular Atlantic isle.

Sa: Banijay Rights.

Instinto

(Movistar +, Bambú Producciones)

An erotic thriller starring Mario Casas (“The 33”). Sold to Amazon in Latin America.

Barcelona — Hernán Zin’s latest documentary “Dying to Tell,” a best doc winner at September’s Montreal World Film Festival and last month’s Valladolid Intl. Film Festival, chronicles the aims and personal cost of war correspondents.

Zin has spent more than 20 years in the world’s fiercest conflict zones –Bosnia, Sierra Leona, Rwanda, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan– along with Spanish comrades, several of them dead due to tragic circumstances –Julio Anguita, Ricardo Ortega, Julio Fuentes, José Couso and Miguel Gil. In 2012 in Afghanistan, Zin suffered a panic attack and decided it was time to stop. “Dying to Tell” is the result of that break.

The film is produced by his company Contramedia Films with Quexito Films and Spanish pubcaster Rtve. Zin talked with Variety about the cost of his career,

There’s a sentence in the film –”all that dies within us to tell a story.” What has been the personal cost of your job?...

Madrid — Making good on the largely overlooked achievement of debut feature “The Demons,” Québécois Philippe Lesage’s “Genesis” swept the 63rd Valladolid Intl. Film Festival, winning its top Golden Spike, director and actor on Saturday.

One of Spain’s top three or four festivals, and a bastion of auteur cinema, Valladolid closed its official section Friday with an out-of-competition sneak peek screening of a preliminary version of Til Schweiger’s “Honey in the Head,” still to totally finalize post-production, starring Nick Nolte as a grandfather suffering Alzheimer who is taken off by his 10-year-old daughter to Venice where he lived the love of his life with his wife. Initial local press reactions speak of a “brilliant” performance from Nolte. Matt Dillon, who plays Nolte’s son was in Valladolid to accept an Honorary Spike for his career.

Valladolid’s main competition Audience Award, the prize many distributors are most interested in,...

I, Daniel Blake, The Salesman, Under the Shadow and Fire at Sea will also screen at youth-focused festival.

The fourth edition of the Doha Film Institute’s Ajyal Youth Film Festival (Nov 30-Dec 5) kicks off this week with the Mena debut and gala screening of UK director Otto Bell’s Mongolia-set documentary The Eagle Huntress (pictured).

The father and daughter tale about a young girl who defies social convention and the elements of Mongolia’s Altai Mountains to become her community’s first female eagle hunting champion premiered at Sundance earlier this year.

It is among a number of Academy Award hopefuls screening at the youth-focused event alongside Under The Shadow, The Salesman, The Idol and Fire At Sea.

Festival director and CEO of the Doha Film Institute Fatma Al Remaihi said the tale of female empowerment at the heart of The Eagle Huntress chimed with Ajyal’s focus on “positive social change” this edition.

“We’re delighted...

I, Daniel Blake, The Salesman, Under the Shadow and Fire at Sea will also screen at youth-focused festival.

The fourth edition of the Doha Film Institute’s Ajyal Youth Film Festival (Nov 30-Dec 5) kicks off this week with the Mena debut and gala screening of UK director Otto Bell’s Mongolia-set documentary The Eagle Huntress (pictured).

The father and daughter tale about a young girl who defies social convention and the elements of Mongolia’s Altai Mountains to become her community’s first female eagle hunting champion premiered at Sundance earlier this year.

It is among a number of Academy Award hopefuls screening at the youth-focused event alongside Under The Shadow, The Salesman, The Idol and Fire At Sea.

Festival director and CEO of the Doha Film Institute Fatma Al Remaihi said the tale of female empowerment at the heart of The Eagle Huntress chimed with Ajyal’s focus on “positive social change” this edition.

“We’re delighted...