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During a Movistar+ presentation at the historic Telefónica Building on Madrid’s Gran Via this afternoon, renowned writer-director-producer duo Los Javis – Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – shared early details about their next project, “La bola negra,” a multi-timelined feature about what it is and has meant to be a gay man in Spain throughout the last century.

A day after their series “La Mesías” won the Rose d’Or Award for best mini or limited series at Content Americas, Ambrossi and Calvo – known locally as Los Javis – revealed that they’re in the final stages of putting the project together and will begin shooting later this year. Abrossi and Calvo are writing, directing, and co-producing the feature through their label Suma Content, which is teaming with Movistar+, its production and distribution partner, on “La Mesías.”

“La bola negra” is a “queer revisitation of a part of the history of our country,...

Catalan Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s best film win at Toronto’s Platform for “They Will Be Dust” points to a larger trend.

Backed by generous government support, experienced producers and sales and distribution companies with impeccable track records domestically and abroad, there is a generation of Catalan filmmakers that is hitting its stride with some of the most exciting titles set to come out of Europe over the next year.

The directors who make up this group of contemporaries can no longer be called new, although many are still young and are arriving in the early middle of their careers. Most have prestigious award wins on their mantles already but still have an energy and urgency to their craft that makes their films must-watch fare.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated Catalan film on the horizon is Carla Simon’s “Romería,” the third part of a trilogy begun by 2017’s Berlin Best...

Spanish cinema is expanding, opening up attractive film avenues to reach the worldwide market, driven by upscale commercial projects, blending of genres and a new generation of emerging female directors.

The country’s filmmakers landed three Oscar nominations: Juan A. Bayona with “Society of the Snow” (inter- national feature and makeup and hair styling); and Pablo Berger with “Robot Dreams” (animated feature). Also, four of Netflix’s top five most-popular non-English films ever are from Spain.

“The boom in talent is making for a unique and very diverse cinema,” says Guillermo Farré, Movistar Plus+ head of original films and Spanish cinema.

“The great foreign perception of Spanish cinema is driven by the productions’ quality and their international diffusion,” says Elástica Films’ María Zamora, producer of Carla Simón’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner “Alcarrás.”

“Spanish cinema is evolving with the appearance of new voices especially female and new ways of narrating,...

The Match Factory is set to handle international sales on a new film by “Fire Will Come” director Oliver Laxe, headlined by Sergi López, star of Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

Having begun production, shooting in Spain and then Morocco, the untitled Oliver Laxe project is a Movistar Plus+ original film produced with Pedro and Agustín Almodovar’s El Deseo, Laxe’s Galicia-based label Filmes da Ermida, Oriol Maymó’s Uri Films in Barcelona, and Paris’s 4 A 4 Productions.

The latest from Laxe follows Cannes wins for all his first three features. 2010’s “You Are All Captains,” Laxe’s debut feature, walked off with a Directors’ Fortnight Fipresci Award; 2016’s “Mimosas” scooped the Critics’ Week top Grand Prize, “Fire Will Come” a 2019 Un Certain Regard Jury Prize.

Co-written with “Matadero” director Santiago Fillol, also a co-scribe on “Fire Will Come,” Laxe’s next turns on a man...

“I’m Nevenka,” a Movistar Plus+ original film and the awaited next feature from Spain’s Iciar Bollaín, has closed its earliest pre-sales, struck by Film Factory Entertainment, including a bellwether deal in France.

The deals come as “I’m Nevenka” has wrapped production, shooting in the Basque city of Bilbao before transferring to rural Zamora, western Spain.

Daniel Chabannes’ Epicentre Films, a classic 30-year-old distributor and producer of non-English language art pics, especially from Europe and Latin America, whose recent acquisitions take in San Sebastian Gold Shell winner “The Rye Horn” and Amos Gitai’s “It’s Not Over,” has acquired French rights.

A distributor of both big Cannes winners – “Triangle of Sadness,” “Rosetta,” “The Child” – and slightly more out-there propositions, such as Pablo Berger’s silent movie “Blancanieves,” Xenix Film Distribution has clinched rights to Switzerland.

Iciar Bollaín: A Broader Audience Auteur

The early pre-sales are hardly surprising. Since her big breakout,...

Telefonica’s Movistar Plus+, Spain’s biggest pay TV-svod operator, is set to co-produce new movies from Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Iciar Bollaín, Alberto Rodríguez, Óliver Laxe and Ana Rujas. It’s a move which sees the high-end Spanish TV powerhouse become one of Spain’s most significant movie players.

Titles in the slate are backed by top Spanish producers such as Agustín Almodóvar and Esther García at El Deseo – backing Laxe’s next – and Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo at their high-flying new production house Suma Content, producing what will be Rujas’ debut feature as a director.

The acclaimed “La Mesías,” the latest series from Los Javis – as Ambrossi and Calvo are known – will have its international premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it will the only European series at this year’s event.

In a fillip for Spain’s box office, still 26% down on pre-pandemic levels, Movistar Plus+ will...

West Hollywood-based indie distribution outfit Indican Pictures (“Gossamer Folds”) has secured North American rights for Santiago Fillol’s political thriller “Matadero” (“Slaughterhouse”).

The debut fiction feature from the Argentine director saw its world premiere in competition at Locarno in 2022, with further festival bows at Mar Del Plata and Seville before December theatrical runs in Argentina and Spain via Cinetren and Begin Again Films, respectively.

Negotiations were handled by Randolph Kret of Indican Pictures alongside Brett Walker and partner Miguel Angel Govea at Alief (“Driving Mum”), who handle world sales on behalf of the filmmakers outside of Argentina, France, Spain and Switzerland.

“Indican Pictures is pleased to acquire the Argentinian film “Matadero”– it’s a compelling story that will have viewers on the edge of their seat,” Indican co-founder Randolph Kret told Variety.

Set up in the Argentine pampas, 1970, the narrative nods to the shocking, hyper-realistic cinema of the era and follows U.

The Golden Shell winner at the San Sebastián––the Basque film festival’s top prize––went to home-grown filmmaker Jaione Camborda for this absorbing and sensual Galician-language abortion drama The Rye Horn, an urgent film about women in a totalitarian environment that has potent echoes today.

It’s 1971 and the late stages of the Franco regime on an island off the northwest coast of Spain, the same Galicia region that provided the untamed landscapes of The Beasts and Olivier Laxe’s Fire Will Come. Maria, perhaps in her late 30s or early 40s, makes a living in this rustic part of the world picking shellfish, in touch with nature and the tactile world of her surroundings. But in this tight-knit community, she’s also an unofficial midwife, perhaps a symbol of how the centralized, male-led Spain of the regime has neglected this far-flung end of the country––only women protect women here.

Toronto’s Platform is set to be enriched by Jaione Camborda’s poignant second feature “The Rye Horn.” The film, set against the backdrop of 1970s Galicia, unravels the tale of María, a midwife thrust into a life on the run following a devastating incident. Her path to freedom takes her from Galicia to Portugal, retracing ancient smugglers’ trails.

The film, supported by the Galician broadcaster Tvg and the region’s Agency of Cultural Industries (Agadic), was brought to life under the banner of Andrea Vázquez’s Miramemira and Camborda’s own label, Esnatu Zinema, and Elástica Films, behind “Alcarràs” and “Creature.” Portugal’s Bando à Parte and Belgium’s Bulletproof Cupid co-produce. Elastica also distributes in Spain.

With the film also bound for San Sebastian main competition, for its European premiere, Camborda’s return to her hometown is particularly poignant. “For me, it’s like a gift… I grew up in the Basque Country,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)

Wes Anderson has done it all: India by train, Rhode Island by foot, the Mediterranean by sub, France by bike, faux-Germany by hotel, apple-orchard America by fox, animated Japan by dog, motel Texas by friends, New York City by family. But––despite the feeling that this couldn’t possibly be true––he’s never told a story in western America. In setting he hasn’t gone further west than Houston. Until Asteroid City: Arizona desert by quarantine. – Luke H. (full review)

Where to Stream: Peacock

Beatrix (Lilith Kraxner & Milena Czernovsky)

One of the best films in recent years––still without U.S. distribution––is streaming for free the next two weeks on Le Cinéma Club. It...

Oscar winner Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”), “The Secret Life of Words” director Isabel Coixet and “Veneno” writer-director-producers Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo feature among talent behind Spanish titles at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival, the highest profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world.

Coixet will compete for the first time in San Sebastian’s main competition with “Un Amor,” a probing village-set tale of emotional dependence starring Laia Costa (“Lullaby”) and “Money Heist’s” Hovik Keuchkerian.

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal will present as a special screening animated feature “They Shot the Piano Player,” a joyful and finally devastating portrait of the life and fate of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. narrated by Jeff Goldblum.

Ambrossi and Calvo – popularly known as Los Javis – will world premiere “La Mesías,” the most awaited Spanish series of the year, a big-scale, period-hopping Movistar Plus+ original, chronicling the devastating effect of a childhood education,...

The technology of cinematography has undergone some of the most seismic shifts in film history this century, with what began in the 2000s as an almost entirely photochemical process transforming into the digitally captured, manipulated, and projected images of today. The art of cinematography, however — using light, color, and texture to express ideas and elicit emotional reactions from the audience — remains intact.

In 2017, IndieWire made a list of the best shot feature films of the century thus far; the list was updated in 2020, and what follows is the third and most extensive version of the list. It’s also the first to be spearheaded by the IndieWire Craft team, which has grown considerably since this list was first published. Ranking cinematography is, in some ways, a fool’s errand given the broad variety of genres, resources, and intentions encompassed by the films below, but these are 60 titles that IndieWire believes...

Galician language film is sold by Europe Film Sales.

Berlinale Panorama title Matria, the feature-debut of Spanish director Álvaro Gago, a Screen Star of Tomorrow, has sold to France.

French distributor Les Alquimistes has picked up the film from sales agent Europe Film Sales. Talks are ongoing for other territories.

Galician-language Matria focuses on the trials and tribulations of a 40-something single mother in a coastal town in northwestern Spain, and was well received by reviewers at Berlin.

Gago previously made a short film of the same name, featuring the same character, which won the short film grand jury prize at the 2018 Sundance film festival.

Spanish sales company to handle Spanish director’s third feature.

Spanish sales company Bendita Films has acquired international rights to Lois Patiño’s third feature Samsara, which plays in the Berlinale’s Encounters section

Samsara is a Sanskrit word referring to the cycle of birth, life, death and re-incarnation. Patiño’s film travels from the temples of Laos to the beaches of Zanzibar, accompanying a soul in transit from one body to another.

Patiño’s Red Moon Tide premiered in the Berlinale Forum in 2020 while Coast of Death won the best emerging director prize at Locarno in 2013. His short film...

In the run-up to February’s Berlin Film Festival, Madrid-based Latido Films has pounced on “Sica,” the fiction feature debut of Carla Subirana, one of a hard-to-miss vibrant new generation of Barcelona-based women directors and producers now galvanizing the Catalan film scene.

In a frequent alignment between the two companies, Spanish distribution will be handled by Adolfo Blanco’s A Contracorriente Films, one of Spain’s top indie distributors.

Also written by Subirana, the film is produced by another new Catalan generation leading-light: Director-producer Alba Sotorra whose latest outing behind the cameras, “The Return: Life After Isis,” which world premiered at Sxsx, was nominated for a 2022 Intl. Emmy Award and was described by Variety as a “compassionate, essential glimpse into the aftermath of radicalization.”

A triple winner at 2022’s Malaga Festival work in progress,

“Sica” encapsulates many of the currents now coursing through cutting-edge fiction in Spain: a redolent sense...

In its first full-on post-pandemic edition, Locarno roared back into action as an industry hub over Aug. 3-9, smashing attendance records with delegates at industry arm Locarno Pro soaring from 2019’s prior record of 1,040 to 1,300.

That reflects the year-round work of festival artistic director Giona Nazzaro and industry head Markus Duffner at Locarno Pro, building on foundations laid by Nadia Dresti over 2010-19. Sky rocketing attendance also says much about the state of the international film industry as it is is rocked by titanic sea change propelled by global, regional and local streaming platforms. Following, 10 takes on Locarno as its turns its final bend towards Aug. 13’s awards announcement.

Latest Deals

A score or more of new deals announced since Sunday in exclusivity to Variety:

*Germany’s Pluto Film has been in negotiations with several theatrical distributors on Locarno Piazza Grande title “Semret,” ahead of its world premiere on Aug.

Paris-based sales company Alief has swooped on international sales rights to horror-political thriller “Matadero” (“Slaughterhouse”), the awaited fiction feature debut of Argentina’s Santiago Fillol, co-scribe on Oliver Laxe’s Cannes winners “Mimosa” and “Fire Will Come.”

Co-written by Fillol, “Matadero” world premieres this week in Locarno’s main International Competition.

The film takes a stark look at a historic tale through the maniacal lens of U.S. filmmaker Jared (Julio Perillán), as he shoots a big-screen version of a 19th-century text by Argentine writer Estaban Echeverría, exploiting the times and their trappings to create a piece of cinema meant to dig itself into the collective consciousness.

Taking on tensions that boil over between landowners and laborers, Jared’s lofty vision for his adaptation will push the cast and crew to the brink. As his plot advances, ego and deception reign.

Fillol’s rendition takes place in 1970s rural Argentina,...

Alba Sotorra has teamed with Miramemira’s Andrea Vázquez, Spanish pubcaster Tve and Catalonia’s Tvc to co-produce “Sica,” the first fiction feature of documentarist Carla Subirana , a 2012 Málaga Golden Biznaga winner for “Kanimambo” and director of “Nedar.”The film is included in Malaga’s Spanish Wip showcase.

The feature focuses on 13-year old Sica who lives on Costa da Morte, a Galician fishing shoreline known for its natural beauty and the danger of its coast. Passionate about the ocean, Sica waits for the waves to bring back the corpse of her father, a fisherman who perished at sea alongside her friend’s Leda. But that never happens – something Sica can’t accept.

As “the world’s corner,” this special landscape “joins two essential ideas: the transformation of a way of life of an entire community historically linked to the sea; and a reflection – if we do not reverse the current climatic trend,...

Selected by Variety as a talent to track, Spain’s Jaione Camborda is developing her sophomore effort, “The Rye Horn,” a story that takes place in ‘70s Galicia. After a terrible event, midwife María is forced to become a fugitive and, to wrestle back her freedom, flee Galicia for Portugal along an old smugglers’ route.

Camborda attended Prague’s Famu film school and Munich’s University of Film and Television (Hff Munich). After several experimental shorts her feature debut “Arima” took a New Waves Award at the Seville European Fest in 2019.

“The Rye Horn” has been developed at two of Spain’s leading labs, San Sebastian’s Ikusmira Berriak and Madrid’s Ecam Incubator, and has participated at the TIFF Filmmaker Lab. The project is back by Galician pubcaster Tvg and the region’s Agency of Cultural Industries (Agadic). “The Rye Horn” is produced by Andrea Vázquez at Miramemira – the...

Exclusive: Principal photography has started in Tunisia on contemporary drama Contra, set in the aftermath of the powerful anti-government protests that provoked a wave of change in the region, known as the Arab spring.

The film (previously known as Before Spring) is being directed by Egyptian-British filmmaker Lotfy Nathan and will star French Tunisian actor Adam Bessa, known for his performances in recent action movies Mosul and Extraction.

A modern day parable about resistance, the film centers on the story of Ali, a young Tunisian who dreams of a better life, making a precarious living selling contraband gas at the local black market. When his father suddenly dies, he’s forced to take charge of his two younger sisters and their impending eviction. The movie will feature a combination of local actors and non-professionals.

Nathan’s narrative debut, shot on 35mm film, is being produced by Julie Viez (Long Day’s Journey Into Night...

While the summer movie season will kick off shortly––and we’ll be sharing a comprehensive preview on the arthouse, foreign, indie, and (few) studio films worth checking out––on the streaming side, The Criterion Channel and Mubi have unveiled their May 2021 lineups and there’s a treasure trove of highlights to dive into.

Timed with Satyajit Ray’s centenary, The Criterion Channel will have a retrospective of the Indian master, along with series on Gena Rowlands, Robert Ryan, Mitchell Leisen, Michael Almereyda, Josephine Decker, and more. In terms of recent releases, they’ll also feature Fire Will Come, The Booksellers, and the new restoration of Tom Noonan’s directorial debut What Happened Was….

On Mubi, in anticipation of Undine, they’ll feature two essential early features by Christian Petzold, Jerichow and The State That I Am In, along with his 1990 short documentary Süden. Also amongst the lineup is Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing,...

Jaione Camborda’s “The Rye Horn,” Enrique Buleo’s “Still Life with Ghosts” and Eva Saiz’s “Casa de fieras” feature among a bevy of new Spanish film projects to be offered at the 4th Madrid-based Incubator.

A mentorship program hosted by Madrid’s Ecam Film School, the Incubator has fast consolidated as one of the foremost development labs in Spain targeting producers of first and second features.

The 4th Incubator runs from April through October.

Projects were chosen from a preselection made from over 200 submitted projects led by The Screen program manager Gemma Vidal. All Incubator’s projects receive €10,000 for development. As valuable, however, will be the tutorship led, among directors, by Arantxa Echevarría (“Carmen & Lola”), Rodrigo Sorogoyen (“May God Save Us”), Juan Cavestany (“Spanish Shame”) and director-producer Alberto Marini (“Summer Camp”).

Producer mentors, packing a large experience and multiple hits, take in Simón de Santiago (“While at War...

Netflix has boarded new action-packed film projects in France, including the sequel of Guillaume Pierret’s thriller “Lost Bullet,” and Regis Blondeau’s “A Tombeau Ouvert,” a remake of the Korean film “A Hard Day.”

The service’s slate of Originals for 2021, meanwhile, comprises the action movie “The Last Mercenary” with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and the series “Braqueurs,” a spinoff of Julien Leclercq’s movie.

The service is expecting to roll out 27 French Originals by the end of 2021, according to Anne-Gabrielle Dauba-Pantanacce, head of communications at Netflix.

The titles were announced during a virtual presentation of Netflix’s French slate for 2021, hosted by Damien Couvreur, head of French series originals, Sara May, Netflix’s head of acquisitions and co-productions for France and Italy, and Dauba-Pantanacce.

“Lost Bullet” is high-concept thriller revolving around a man who gets arrested after a failed robbery and starts working for a cop unit to avoid going to jail.

Netflix officially opened its offices in Paris a year ago today and to mark the anniversary the streamer has confirmed details of four upcoming projects.

On the film side, Guillaume Pierret will direct a sequel to his 2020 action pic Lost Bullet, which was a hit for Netflix, attracting more than 37 million viewers in its first four weeks, the company said.

Also in film, Régis Blondeau will remake the 2014 Korean film A Hard Day as A Tombeau Ouvert, starring Franck Gastambide and Simon Abkarian.

In TV, the company confirmed production today on two new series including The 7 lives Of Lea, created by Charlotte Sanson and produced by Empreinte Digitale. The cast will feature Raïka Hazanavicius, Khalil Ben Gharbia, Mélanie Doutey and Samuel Benchetrit. The story follows a woman who stumbles upon the body of Ismael, a teenager who disappeared thirty years earlier, with the event taking her back to 1991 and seeing...

Mexican virtual lab offers Usd 30,000 in cash prizes.

Spanish multiple Cannes award winner Olivier Laxe, US auteur Rick Alverson and Argentina’s Lisandro Alonso are among participants in the expanded third Mexican project lab Catapulta set to run as an entirely virtual event from March 24-27.

Scroll to bottom to see all lab participants

Laxe, whose Fire Will Come won the Cannes Un Certain Regard jury prize in 2019 and followed a 2016 Critics’ Week grand prize for Mimosas and the 2010 Fipresci award for Directors’ Fortnight selection You Are All Captains, takes part in the new development programme.

His project After (France...

Contact Film, a well-established Dutch distribution company specializing in arthouse films, is preparing to fold after a 30-year run, Variety has confirmed.

The company, whose past releases include the Oscar-nominated documentary “Honeyland” and Oliver Laxe’s Cannes prize-winning “Fire Will Come,” has ceased acquiring films, said founder and CEO Gérard Huisman, who is retiring this year.

The 70-year-old distribution veteran said he had planned to retire before the pandemic, but had been expecting his board to carry on and its three staff members to keep buying films.

The pandemic, however, created difficulties for the company, which had already been struggling for a number of years, explained Huisman. Because it belongs to a non-profit foundation, Contact Film is not eligible for many subsidies or government loans. The government does cover 30% of employee salaries but the aid hasn’t been sufficient for Contact Film to stay afloat and continue spending money on new acquisitions,...

Virus crisis hits film distributor of art house hits including ‘Honeyland’.

Independent Dutch distributor Contact Film is to close down after more than 30 years due to the ongoing virus crisis.

The Arnhem-based company has been a major buyer of arthouse titles since being founded by Gérard Huisman in 1991, with recent titles including the Oscar-nominated Honeyland and Oliver Laxe’s Cannes award-winner, Fire Will Come.

But Huisman confirmed to Screen that Contact Film had ceased acquiring new titles and will shutter the business within the next two years.

Huisman had already planned to step down as CEO but discussed the possibility...

“A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist–moving an audience through a movie […] making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark,” said the late, great Gordon Willis. As we continue our year-end coverage, one aspect we must highlight is, indeed, cinematography. From talented newcomers to seasoned professionals, we’ve rounded up the examples that have most impressed us this year. Check out our rundown below.

An Easy Girl (Georges Lechaptois)

The French Riviera is the fitting location for this tale of sexual discovery and class criticism. Georges Lechaptois’ frames are gorgeous not just because of the landscape––we have reoccurring overhead shots of the crystal-blue tides rustling against the beach where characters lay––but the juxtaposition of the quiet life out on the sea. The sun-soaked vistas at lunch are as lively as the quiet, sensuous nights the lovers spend in their dimly lit...

Brooklyn-based distributor KimStim has acquired North American rights to Brazilian director Maya Da-Rin’s feature debut “The Fever” (“A Febre”), which world premiered in competition at Locarno and played at Toronto in 2019.

The film is represented in international markets by Pierre Menahem’s French sales banner Still Moving, who negotiated the deal on behalf of the producers with KimStim’s Mika Kimoto. “The Fever” will have its New York premiere at New Directors/New Films in December.

“The Fever” follows Justino, a 45-year-old member of the indigenous Desana people, who is a security guard at the Manaus harbor. As his daughter prepares to study medicine in Brasilia, Justino comes down with a mysterious fever. The movie’s key crew includes the veteran cinematographer Barbara Alvarez.

“The Fever” is set to open in theaters in 2021 in France where it will be distributed by Survivance, and in the U.K. with New Wave Films handling,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe prolific, captivating Sean Connery has died. As critic Glenn Kenny writes in his obituary for Decider, Connery will always be "tied to the role of James Bond, [but] so many of Connery’s non-Bond roles were [...] fascinating, challenging, and cinematically important." Recommended VIEWINGGrasshopper Films' official trailer for the new 4k digital restoration of Manoel de Oliveira's 1981 Francisca, an adaptation of Agustina Bessa-Luís’ acclaimed novel. Oscilloscope has released the first trailer for The Twentieth Century, Matthew Rankine's dark comedy-drama that reimagines the life of former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. The film won the Fipresci prize in the Forum section of the 2019 Berlinale. The Asian Film Archive has announced Monographs 2020, a series of video essays commissioned and conceived during lockdown. Featuring a wide range of filmmakers, the series aims to offer "an...

Fire Walk with Me: Laxe Anchors an Arsonist in Meditative Portrait

If fire is the regenerative metaphor of the phoenix, the same cannot be said for the redemption of the arsonist, at least not as depicted in the simmering neorealist slanted drama Fire Will Come from Oliver Laxe.

Playing like a hybrid character study/docudrama, Laxe enlists the local populace of Galicia in northwest Spain, each glancing across the screen defined by their occupations in an environment which seems to be shifting towards tourism and revitalization.…...

Oliver Laxe’s brilliant Fire Will Come (currently streaming online in virtual cinemas) opens with an unease that lingers long after the images that inspired it — crowded, quiet, as natural as they are unearthly — have passed us by. A sublime harbinger of the subtle violences to come. Without preface or warning, we’re in a thick forest spooked with fog and unknowing. The camera moves slowly and reveals little at first but the terrain, tracking along the forest floor, then hovering eerily through and above it all, soaking up the...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)

In the opening shot of Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery, a man polishes the floor in a room walled with masterpieces. Writing about the scene for Mubi recently, the critic Joseph Owen noted that “the politics of this institution exist in a subterranean passage: between its low-paid maintenance jobs and its disreputable oil sponsorships.” Petrodollars aside, it’s an observation that speaks in some way to any number of Wiseman’s films: that the souls of the institutions he so dedicatedly depicts are neither the heads on top, the public face or the multitude of working parts below but something malleable and indefinable in the middle.

Somewhere between a bucolic documentary and a Bressonian character study, Oliver Laxe’s terse but open-souled “Fire Will Come” begins with a prologue that anticipates the coiled grace of the film that follows. Bulldozers plow down the dark hills of Galicia — the autonomous region of Spain where Laxe’s family comes from, and where the French-born director spent his childhood summers — their headlights shimmering through the midnight darkness so that the forest of doomed eucalyptus trees appears to be underwater. The ethereal sequence builds to a standstill when one of the bulldozers stops at the base of a trunk that it can’t bear to knock down, the machine seemingly awed by the size or self-assurance of what’s blocking its path. We tend to accept nature as we see it before us, even when it stands in our way; even when it threatens us. We don’t tend to extend people the same courtesy.

Oliver Laxe’s spellbinding third film Fire Will Come opens and closes with grand, almost mythic natural phenomena involving the eucalyptus trees in the Galician region of Spain, but in between it focuses on the everyday rural rhythms in the life of Amador, a convicted arsonist who’s been released from prison, and his elderly mother, Benedicta. While the title anticipates violence and devastation, Laxe maintains a measured, thoughtful pace and refuses to pathologize or sentimentalize Amador, his mother, or the townspeople around them.

As the film reaches virtual cinemas, The Film Stage spoke to Laxe about the search for “essential images,” his desire to not make a psychological film, and shooting a movie where his family was born.

The Film Stage: The opening of the film is rather startling. What about the image of these machines tearing down these trees felt like the right way to begin?

Oliver Laxe:...

Oliver Laxe’s first two films, You All Are Captains (2010) and Mimosas (2016), take place in his adopted home of Morocco. In this year’s Fire Will Come, however, the writer-director returns to his childhood stomping grounds—not Paris, where he was born and raised, but the mountainous enclaves of rural Galicia, an autonomous region in the northwest corner of Spain. Born to Galician parents, Laxe spent formative summer retreats visiting relatives among the natural splendour of the Serra dos Ancares, parts of which overlap with the religious pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago. Drawing from childhood memories, Laxe exalts the […]

The post "The Hardest Path is Always the Best Path": Oliver Laxe on Fire Will Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Oliver Laxe’s first two films, You All Are Captains (2010) and Mimosas (2016), take place in his adopted home of Morocco. In this year’s Fire Will Come, however, the writer-director returns to his childhood stomping grounds—not Paris, where he was born and raised, but the mountainous enclaves of rural Galicia, an autonomous region in the northwest corner of Spain. Born to Galician parents, Laxe spent formative summer retreats visiting relatives among the natural splendour of the Serra dos Ancares, parts of which overlap with the religious pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago. Drawing from childhood memories, Laxe exalts the […]

The post "The Hardest Path is Always the Best Path": Oliver Laxe on Fire Will Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The amount of high-ish profile movies coming out this month almost makes it seem like the industry is back in business. It’s not. They’re mostly all limited release / drive-in / VOD hybrids, but the fact that distributors are ramping up for the fall season regardless of everything shows that the tentativeness about forgoing a wide release to let a title enter this brave new world has somewhat dissipated.

A lack of big studio pictures creating a vacuum that must be filled helps and the little guys are finally taking advantage. So the need for good art becomes paramount even if few people will see it under glass on their local multiplex’s wall. There still needs to be brand recognition online. There still needs to be widespread exposure. A return of fierce competition incentivizes the demand for aesthetic strength to set your product apart.

Back to the crowd

It’s a hero’s pose.

Palme d’Or winning producer Luis Miñarro (“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”) is set to direct his fifth feature, ”Impalpable” (a working title), produced by Miñarro’s label, Barcelona-based Eddie Saeta, one of Spain’s most prominent arthouse shingles.

Written by Miñarro, “Impalpable” follows a series of characters who take a bus to an unspecified destination. The situation becomes gradually

stranger as the bus make no stops. Nor can the passengers descend.

“Impalpable”‘s cast will include Naomi Kawase, Geraldine Chaplin and Spain’s Lola Dueñas (“The Sea Inside”) and Francesc Orella (“Julia’s Eyes”), among others.

By chance, though with foresight, ”I first thought of this project before the pandemic. It’s a homage to Luis Buñuel’s ‘The Exterminating Angel,’” Miñarro told Variety. Over three days and two nights, its characters get to know one another, as the audience enters the minds of main characters, unleashing...

Fire Will Come (O Que Arde) Kimstim Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Oliver Laxe Screenwriter: Santiago Fillol, Oliver Laxe Cast: Amador Arias, Benedicta Sánchez, Inazio Abrao, Elena Mar Fernández, David de Poso, Alvaro de Bazal, Damián Prado Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 3/5/20 Opens: May 8, 2020 […]

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Backed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Institute of Cinematography and the Audiovisual Arts (Icaa), 10 promising Spanish projects participated in a marathon day of speed meetings through the day on Thursday at Cannes’ Marché du Film.

Below, summaries of the hopeful projects:

“A Thousand Lives,” (Marina Seresesky)

Meridional Producciones and Wandermoon Finance partner on Goya-nominated filmmaker Marina Seresesky’s latest psychological drama “A Thousand Lives.” Four years after her son disappeared, Sofia sees a news report about a four-year-old boy halfway around the world who claims to remember a past life. The distressed mother travels to Latin America to find the child, sure that this child is her own son reincarnated. There, she earns the boy’s trust and his family’s misgivings. Colombian-Spanish actress Juana Acosta is attached.

“The Daughter of the Volcano,” (Jenifer de la Rosa)

A co-production involving Spain’s Mayeutica Producciones, Icónica Producciones...

Producers on the Move, a networking forum for up-and-coming producers from Europe, takes place as a virtual event this week. The organizer, European Film Promotion, has given Variety exclusive access to the projects the producers are pitching to sales companies.

Here are their projects, including the latest films from the directors of SXSW standout “Lake Bodom” and Cannes breakout “Fire Will Come.” (Biographies of the producers can be found at this link.)

“After”

Producer: Andrea Queralt, 4 A 4 Productions (France)

Director: Oliver Laxe

Genre: Existential Road-Movie

The next film from Oliver Laxe, the director of Cannes breakout hit “Fire Will Come,” winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize. “After” follows a disparate group of ravers who go in quest of the ultimate party in a remote corner of Africa. They embark on an odyssey into the depths of the Saharan desert, a mirror of sand for the characters.

“La Bella Estate”

Producer: Giovanni Pompili,...

European Film Promotion’s networking program Producers on the Move will take place as a digital edition on its original dates – from May 11 to 15 – and independently of the Cannes Film Festival, which has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Twenty up-and-coming European producers will meet online and present their projects in speed meetings and roundtable sessions. A case study as well as talks with experts will round out the program.

Efp, a network of 37 European film promotion institutions, has selected the following producers from 20 different European countries: Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria), Danijel Pek (Croatia), Mikuláš Novotny (Czech Republic), Monica Hellström (Denmark), Elina Litvinova (Estonia), Aleksi Hyvärinen (Finland), Andrea Queralt (France), Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer (Germany), John Wallace (Ireland), Giovanni Pompili (Italy), Yll Uka (Kosovo), Marija Razgutė (Lithuania), Alan R. Milligan (Norway), Marta Habior (Poland), Mário Patrocínio (Portugal), Marina Gumzi (Slovenia), Olmo Figueredo González-Quevedo (Spain), Marie Kjellson (Sweden), Flavia Zanon (Switzerland) and Rupert Lloyd (U.

Curzon has reshuffled its releases to strengthen its streaming schedule.

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Truth has retained its lead as the most-watched title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) as the UK streaming platform prepares to strengthen its schedule of new releases.

The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, held the top spot on the platform for the third consecutive weekend. It is on track to overtake Chc’s most successful title to date, Celine Sciamma’s Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, as audiences continue to seek out new releases at home due to the closure of cinemas in...

Oliver Laxe’s drama about a fire-starter in rural Spain is visually arresting but exasperating as a piece of storytelling

It is certainly an ominous title for a movie about a convicted pyromaniac being released from prison and allowed home to live with his mother. Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come is a sombre but lovely looking film that makes its own kind of higher sense in the context of climate change – an award winner in the Un Certain Regard at last year’s Cannes. But, as before with this director, I find myself admiring his visual and compositional sense, while being a bit exasperated by the provisional and coyly non-committal nature of his storytelling.

Amador (played by non-professional Amador Arias) is the guy whom we see leaving jail, with officials muttering over his hefty official file and the wildfire he was notoriously found to have set in the hills some years back.

Audiences to be directed to digital platform Curzon Home Cinema.

UK cinema chain Curzon is to close its theatres following government advice over the spread of coronavirus and direct audiences to digital platform Curzon Home Cinema.

The company operates 13 cinemas around the country, which will be closed from Thursday (March 19) and comes the day after UK prime minister Boris Johnson advised people to avoid theatres and pubs, while stopping short of forcing venues to close.

It is the latest cinema chain to announce closures on the day Odeon, Vue, Cineworld, Picturehouse, Everyman and BFI Southbank committed to shutter operations amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pedro Almodóvar calls for “protection” of independent cinema in Spain.

Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory was the big winner at the Spanish Film Academy Awards in Málaga on Saturday night (25) with seven Goyas including best film, best director and best actor for Antonio Banderas.

With 17 and 16 nominations respectively, Alejandro Amenábar’s While At War and Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory started the night as the two favourites and the race looked close until almost the end, when Antonio Banderas went onstage to collect the Goya for best actor.

A moved Banderas – who had already seen his work recognised with...

Pedro Almodóvar calls for “protection” of independent cinema in Spain.

Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory was the big winner at the Spanish Film Academy Awards in Málaga on Saturday night (25) with seven Goyas including best film, best director and best actor for Antonio Banderas.

With 17 and 16 nominations respectively, Alejandro Amenábar’s While At War and Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory started the night as the two favourites and the race looked close until almost the end, when Antonio Banderas went onstage to collect the Goya for best actor.

A moved Banderas – who had already seen his work recognised with...

Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory, a double Oscar nominee for star Antonio Banderas and the film itself in the Best International Feature race, swept the top categories Saturday at Spain’s Goya Awards. Scroll down for the full list.

Banderas, up for Best Actor at the Oscars, won best actor award at the Spanish film academy’s annual ceremony, held this year in Malaga. Almodovar won best director and for best screenplay, and the film took a total of seven awards from 16 nominations. One of those misses was Penelope Cruz, who lost in the best actress category to Belen Cuesta of The Endless Trench.

Alejandro Amenabar’s While at War, the Spanish Civil War drama that came in with a leading 17 nominations, won five awards including Eduard Fernandez for supporting actor.

Pain and Glory played in competition this year at the Cannes Film Festival, where Banderas won the Best...

Madrid — Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” took home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Antonio Banderas) and Best Original Screenplay at the 34th Spanish Academy Goya Awards, as well as Best Editing, Original Music and Supporting Actress (Julieta Serrano).

Almodóvar’s night did have one blemish, however. On the red carpet ahead of the ceremony he accidentally let slip that actress Penelope Cruz will be handing out this year’s Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars, as she and Banderas did last time Almodóvar won, with 2000’s “All About my Mother.”

Saturday night’s ceremony ran like a marathon, with Almodóvar and Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War” exchanging the lead back and forth over the 3.5 hour ceremony before “Pain and Glory” took the ceremony’s final three prizes, ending with seven awards while Amenábar’s Spanish Civil War epic notched five.

In his first on-stage appearance of the night,...