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Agustí Villaronga, one of the most versatile of higher-profile Spanish auteurs, is attached to direct “Purgatory,” a project which will be presented at Locarno’s Match Me! Event by Nati Escobar at Spain’s Galápagos Media.

“Purgatory” turns on Father Tomás, a scholar of ancient history and biblical theology sent to a remote sanatorium as a penance for his sins. There, the priest discovers that the small community seems to be entranced by the teachings of a patient.

A title to track at Match Me!, a large networking event, “Purgatory” promises a study of the frontiers between faith and superstition, conviction and manipulation.

The project will be produced by director-producer Pau Calpe and Nati Escobar at Spain’s Galápagos Media and co-produced by Xavier Crespo at Dacsa Produccions. Calpe has just directed “Tros,” a Film Factory-sold drama thriller.. Galápagos has been recently involved in the co-production of Icíar Bollaín’s “Yuli.

Studiocanal is collaborating with Sixteen Films’ Rebecca O’Brien and Morena Film’s Juan Gordon to develop a series created by longtime Ken Loach scribe Paul Laverty and to be directed by Spain’s Iciar Bollaín.

The drama series will be the first for both Laverty and Bollaín after writing and directing respectively 19 and nine feature films, including collaborations on Bollaín’s multi-prized “Yuli,” “The Olive Tree” and “Even the Rain,” movies that established her as one of Spain’s top film directors.

Over the last few years, Cannes’ MipTV trade fair, once a strict TV silo, is now ever more MipFilm. Signs of an ever-building crossover between the two sectors look indeed to make up one of the hallmarks of this year’s event.

In multiple different moves, iconic film talent is plunging ever more into series.

Conceived for TV, content can sell to film distributors, such as has been...

Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Entertainment has sold Icíar Bollaín’s San Sebastian Festival-bound Basque reconciliation drama “Maixabel” to Germany, striking a deal with Berlin-based distributor Piffl Medien.

The film is set to make its theatrical release in Spain on Sept. 24 via Buena Vista Intl.

World premiering in San Sebastian’s main competition this weekend, Bollaín’s film – which she co-wrote with screenwriter Isa Campo (“The Next Skin”) – stars “Volver’s” Blanca Portillo as the widow of murdered socialist leader Juan María Jáuregui who makes steps towards forgiving the Eta terrorist who killed her husband a decade earlier.

The feature is based around the experience of Maixabel Lasa, a key figure in the journey that the Basque Country is making towards peace and reconciliation following the violence of its recent past.

Co-starring Luis Tosar (“Retribution,” “Way Down”), the film was made by top Basque production company Kowalski Films (“Coven”) and Feelgood Films...

Fernando León de Aranoa’s “The Good Boss,” starring Javier Bardem, Alejandro Amenábar’s first drama series “La Fortuna,” and Carlos Saura’s “Rosa Rosae. A Civil War Elegy” head a robust Spanish presence at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

Also in the mix are new films from Jonás Trueba, Iciar Bollaín and Paco Plaza, all playing in main competition, plus Daniel Monzón’s Warner Bros.-distributed “Las leyes de la frontera,” selected as San Sebastián’s closing night film, and “The Daughter,” from Manuel Martín Cuenca. “Rosa Rosae” will screen at the San Sebastian’s opening night ceremony on Sept. 17.

World premiering at Venice, Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas movie shoot comedy “Official Competition” will open San Sebastian’s best of fests section Perlak.

Spanish cinema’s socio-political traditions remain strong: “The Good Boss” is a study of company management machinations. In a highly polarized Spain, Bollaín’s “Maixabel,...

The final deadline for UK companies to apply for EU Media support is June 16, 2020.

The UK government has confirmed it is considering a homegrown alternative to the European Union’s Creative Europe Media programme, which the UK film and TV sector will exit at the end of 2020.

It comes ahead of the final deadline today (June 16) for which any UK company can apply for Media funding, ending close to 30 years of support for UK sales agents, distributors, exhibitors, and production companies.

”The government is committed to supporting the UK’s brilliant film sector and the wider creative economy,” said a government spokesperson.

Chicago – One of the oldest Latino Film Festivals is right here in the Windy City, as the 35th edition of the Chicago Latino Film Festival (Clff) kicks off with a Cuban/Spain/UK/German film entitled “Yuli” on March 28th, 2019, at the AMC River East 21 in the Streeterville neighborhood. This Opening Night and its gala after celebrates a Night of Cuba. Although the event is sold out, click here for additional information.

Opening Night of the 35th Clff Celebrates Cuba Night with ‘Yuli’

Photo credit: ChicagoLatinoFilmFestival.org

Spanish director Icíar Bollaín (“Even the Rain”) and her partner Paul Laverty (Ken Loach’s longtime collaborator) try something completely different with this adaptation of acclaimed Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta’s autobiography. Yuli, the nickname given to Acosta by his father Pedro, runs wild in the streets of Havana where he participates in dance-offs with other kids. Recognizing Yuli’s natural talent,...

San Sebastian — Isaki Lacuesta’s “Between Two Waters” won big at San Sebastian Saturday night, taking its top Golden Shell, the second time the Catalan director has won the award, after 2011’s “The Double Steps.”

Otherwise, the big winner of the night was Benjamin Naishtat’s covert violence thriller “Rojo,” which took director, actor (Dario Grandinetti) and cinematography (Pedro Sotero).

This year’s edition saw a a hugely-raised Hollywood star quotient, a half score or more of A-list talent hailing into town to tub-thump titles: Bradley Cooper (“A Star is Born”), Ryan Gosling (“First Man”), Alfonso Cuarón (“Roma”), Robert Pattinson (“High Life”), Chris Hemsworth (“Bad Times at the El Royale”), John C. Reilly (“The Sisters Brothers”).

As Venice becomes ever more an Oscar platform, movies will now hit San Sebastian three weeks later, often off Toronto, their stars in tow, to capitalize on and push their potential Academy Award glory.

Any biopic of a great artist in any discipline tends to wrestle with the same problem: that the artist’s life, eventful though it may be, is usually less immersively interesting than their very best art. In the case of Cuban ballet superstar Carlos Acosta, the promise of watching his rise — from an impoverished childhood on the outskirts of Havana to 17 years as a principal dancer at London’s Royal Ballet — enacted by less miraculously gifted performers isn’t quite as enticing as the spectacle of that extraordinary body in motion. So it’s to the credit of Iciar Bollain’s devoted Acosta portrait “Yuli” that it effectively owns up to that issue, and does some fancy structural footwork of its own to get around it: Part straightforward biographical drama, part interpretive dance piece, it resourcefully allows Acosta to narrate his story with movement rather than speech, while two young...