News

Auto brand Cupra, an official partner of the Berlinale, is teaming up with the festival and Studio Babelsberg on its new edition of The Dream Makers: Short Film Contest.

Launched in 2024, the competition invited aspiring film directors aged 21 to 30 to showcase their talent, offering winners the opportunity to have their short films produced and brought to the big screen.

Cupra organized the inaugural edition of The Dream Makers in collaboration with Spanish film director and Cupra brand ambassador J.A. Bayona and the Film and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (Escac). The Short Film Contest received 400 proposals from 15 different countries.

Discussing the initiative at the Cupra City Garage Berlin on Sunday, Cupra CEO Wayne Griffiths said, “I think The Dream Makers is the opportunity to find the next generation of filmmakers, to give them an opportunity to show their work, to tell their stories – something we’re really passionate about at Cupra...

Ghost stories around the world, and international horror cinema has fed into this hunger with classics like Kwaidan and The Orphanage. If you want your supernatural horror icy and atmospheric, then look no further than Rift (Rökkur), waiting to haunt you on Tubi. It’s a 2017 Icelandic queer horror slow-burn that turns a stunning landscape into a place of danger for two exes. Along with some big influence the director took from a horror film of the 1970s, this 2017 supernatural film forces you to confront the horrors that a breakup can unleash.

Studiocanal has revealed a first look at Spanish star Carmen Maura in Argentinian director Martin Mauregui’s psychological horror titleViejaLoca, produced by Ja Bayona.

Argentina’s Daniel Hendler stars in the film as a man caught in a nightmare one stormy evening after receiving a desperate call from an ex-girlfriend to look after her senile mother, played by Maura.

ViejaLocashot in Buenos Aires last year, produced by Bayona Spain’s Peliculas La Trini,with Argentina’s Primo Content and La Union de los Rios, and Spain’s Bambu Producciones and Mr Fields and Friends, and Studiocanal.

Bayona told Screen he...

Studiocanal has revealed a first look at Spanish star Carmen Maura in Argentinian director Martin Mauregui’s psychological horror titleViejaLoca, produced by Ja Bayona.

Argentina’s Daniel Hendler stars in the film as a man caught in a nightmare one stormy evening after receiving a desperate call from an ex-girlfriend to look after her senile mother, played by Maura.

ViejaLocashot in Buenos Aires last year, produced by Bayona Spain’s Peliculas La Trini,with Argentina’s Primo Content and La Union de los Rios, and Spain’s Bambu Producciones and Mr Fields and Friends, and Studiocanal.

Bayona told Screen he...

Spain’s Film Factory Entertainment has added to its burgeoning Berlin sales slate of star-laden upscale entertainment titles with market potential, acquiring international distribution rights to psychological mystery thriller “Reversion,” starring Jaime Lorente, who played the conflicted Denver in “Money Heist.”

Film Factory Entertainment will present a first promo of “Reversion”at this week’s European Film Market in Berlin.

As producers push casts as a manner to stand out in a far too crowded market, “Reversion” also stars Manu Vega (“With the Years I have Left”), Belen Rueda, lead in J.A. Bayona’s debut “The Orphanage,” and Fernando Cayo, Coronel Tamayo in “Money Heist.”

Co- written by Marco Legarde (“UFO Factory”) and Frank Ariza (“With the Years I have Left”), alongside first-time director Jacob Santana, “Reversion” turns on Mario (Lorente) who moves to a new house with his parents and older brother David (Vega).

One rainy afternoon, Mario witnesses his brother being violently kidnapped.

New projects from Lone Scherfig and Hlynur Palmason are among the 55 projects selected for Goteborg Film Festival’s Nordic Film Market (January 29-31).

Scherfig will present Honeytrap in the Discovery - Films In Development strand. The film is produced by Rebecka Hamberger for Sweden’s Art & Bob, with few details currently available on the project. Scherfig’s last feature was 2023’s The Movie Teller, with 2019 Berlinale opener The Kindness Of Strangers prior to that.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Icelandic director Palmason will present The Love That Remains in the Works in Progress strand. The film is...

Göteborg’s prime Nordic Film Market where last year’s Cannes sensations “The Girl with the Needle,” “Armand” and “When the Light Breaks” were first showcased as works in progress, has announced exclusively to Variety its full 2025 program.

Over Jan. 29-31, more than 60 completed films, titles in development and post-production will be showcased to 500-plus industry delegates from 38 countries.

As always, several acclaimed-directors will share the spotlight with promising newcomers, as reflected in the centre-piece 15-title Works in Progress lineup.

Five years after his Cannes selection with “Godland,” Iceland’s festival darling Hlynur Pálmason makes a comeback with “The Love that Remains,” a vignette-driven family drama toplining Sverrir Guðnason and Saga Garðarsdóttir (“Balls”).

A Cannes Directors’ Fortnight habitué, Afghan-born Shahrbanoo Sadat (“The Orphanage”) will bring “No Good Men,” her first romcom, set inside a Kabul newsroom in 2021 pre-Taliban ruled-Afghanistan.

Sweden’s Lisa Langseth (“Pure”) returns to feature length after her...

The Les Arcs Film Festival has announced the 18 in development film projects selected for its 16th Les Arcs Coproduction Village, aimed at connecting the upcoming features with coproducers, sales agents, distributors and other financing partners.

The copro meeting will take place within the context of Alpine festival’s industry program running December 14 to 17.

Sixteen of the 18 projects are directed by female filmmakers, with 38% of the features submitted directed by women. Ten are first fiction feature projects, seven are second features and one is by a more established filmmaker.

They include Ukrainian director Anastasiia Solonevych’s debut feature 30 Days Of Summer, about two sisters who reconnect against the backdrop of a military training camp. Solonevych won the Cannes Palme d’Or for Best Short Film in 2023 for As It Was.

German director Sophie Linnenbaum, whose 2022 fantasy drama The Ordinaries enjoyed a buzzy awards and festival run, will participate with second fiction feature The Nose.

Spain‘s most prestigious film school has launched the second phase of its annual Dream Makers Contest to open doors for a new generation of talent.

The Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (Escac) has confirmed submissions are open for a chance to win a full 4-year scholarship at the school and almost half a million euros to produce the short film.

Applicants are first required to create an original eight-minute film based on three words chosen by J.A. Bayona, Escac and Spanish automobile company Cupra: Barcelona, film and eye.

The school was attended by Bayona (Jurassic World, The Orphanage, The Impossible), who will also be one of the committee members judging the collections of original short films.

The jury also includes Wayne Griffiths, CEO of Cupra, Daniel Brühl, Oscar-nominated actor (Rush, Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, Inglourious Basterds), Escac headmaster Sergi Casamitjana, Escac development director Aintza Serra and Ángel Sala,...

Carlos Marques-Marcet’s Toronto-winning musical drama They Will Be Dust, will open the 69th edition of the Valladolid International Film Week, also known as the Seminci, on October 18.

The end of life drama starring Alfredo Castro and Angela Molina won the Platform section at TIFF last month.

Valladolid, headed by José Luis Cienfuegos for a second year, is a key launchpad into the Spanish market for local and international films.

There are a total of 22 titles in the running for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Spike that comes with a €70,000 award for the Spanish distributor. The Silver Spike...

‘Tis the season to draw viewing inspiration from all things Halloween, and haunted houses are one of the key staples of the holiday. And for good reason, too, as few things are as inherently terrifying as an invasion of the very place where you’re meant to feel safest: your home.

Dealing with a paranormal presence isn’t quite as easy to deal with as masked maniacs or a more tangible threat. It’s often a fear of the unknown that induces the most nerve-fraying anxiety, and a haunted house is full of unknowns. This week’s streaming picks are dedicated to one of horror’s most foundational subgenres: the haunted house movie.

These five titles range from classic haunted house fare to modern frights that reinterpret what a haunted house can be. All aim to induce maximum frights, perfect for this Halloween season.

Here’s where you can stream them this week.

J.A. Bayona made an international splash in 2023 with his survival drama Society of the Snow. The heart-wrenching depiction of the real-life plane crash that stranded a Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes was widely praised for its masterful handling of both the horrible circumstances of the event and the inspiring human element, gaining an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film. But Bayona started his film career in an entirely different genre with 2007s The Orphanage (El orfanato in Spanish), a haunting Gothic-style ghost story set in you guessed it an abandoned orphanage.

After cutting her teeth for just under two decades with films such as The Orphanage (2007), Transsiberian (2008) and Cell 211 (2009), Spanish film producer Elena Manrique moved into the directors’ chair last year embarking on her directorial debut in Fin De Fiesta (The Party’s Over) — at 2024 Toronto Intl. Film Festival selection in the Discovery programme. Before concluding its three public screening showcase at the festival we are pleased to premiere an exclusive clip for the film produced by Sandra Hermida, Belén Atienza, Olmo Figueredo González-Quevedo, Hans Everaert and Carlos Rosado Sibón.

Having arrived illegally in Spain, young Senegalese immigrant Bilal is pursued by the police.…...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

My screening series Amnesiascope partners again with Rohmer Fits for an encore presentation of Éric Rohmer shorts on Sunday.

Paris Theater

“Big & Loud!” returns with 70mm prints of Vertigo, Phantom Thread, and Boogie Nights, along with The Abyss, Close Encounters, and films by Don Hertzfeldt.

Bam

The controversial, remarkable The Spook Who Sat By the Door continues in a new restoration.

Roxy Cinema

Amalia Ulman has programmed prints of If… and The Holy Girl; “Explosive Cinema” offers First Reformed and The Battle of Algiers.

Film at Lincoln Center

As an essential restoration of Shinji Somai’s Moving continues, The Stranger and the Fog begins a run.

Museum of the Moving Image

Speed Racer and A Silent Voice have screenings.

Anthology Film Archives

Films by Buñuel, Chaplin, and Cocteau screen in “Essential Cinema“; Funeral Parade of Roses shows this Friday.

Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat has secured German financing for “No Good Men,” with Berlin-based Amerikafilm joining the director’s long-gestating romantic comedy set inside a Kabul newsroom during the democratic era, before the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

Sadat will be presenting the project, which is produced by Katja Adomeit of Danish-German outfit Adomeit Film along with Paris-based La Fabrica Nocturna and Norway’s Motlys, during the Venice Gap-Financing Market, which runs Aug. 30 – Sep. 1.

The first romcom from an Afghan filmmaker “No Good Men” tells the story of a young camerawoman (played by Ghawgha Taban) who falls for a married TV reporter (Mohammed Anwar Hashimi) twice her age after discovering her husband has been cheating on her. While forbidden love simmers inside the newsroom, the film also portrays the often-dangerous work of reporters in Kabul along with the absurdities of daily life in the city at that time.

Sadat, who...

Guillermo Del Toro believes Crimson Peak was doomed by being marketed solely as a horror film, rather than emphasizing its romance and mystery elements. The film received mixed reviews from audiences, criticizing its lack of spookiness, leading to a less-than-stellar box office performance. Despite the disappointing performance, the film director's career experienced a resurgence, with subsequent successful films and multiple Oscar nominations.

The poor box office performance of Crimson Peak is discussed by the film's director. Crimson Peak is a 2015 supernatural horror film directed by Guillermo del Toro, telling the story of what happens when an author is confronted by a mysterious outsider soon after a family tragedy. Crimson Peak features a leading cast including Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Burn Gorman, and Jim Beaver.

Speaking with Vulture, del Toro discusses Crimson Peak's initial response. According to the director, Crimson Peak's major issue was that...

Víctor Clavijo y Alexandra Jiménez protagonizan la comedia. © Banijay Iberia

Comienza en Bizkaia el rodaje de “Los Muértimer”, una película de comedia basada en la trilogía de cómics homónima de la ilustradora francesa Léa Mazé.

En “Los Muértimer”, Gabi, una estudiante de intercambio, llega a un pequeño pueblo en el Valle de Murrieta, España, donde se aloja con una familia que regenta una funeraria. Tanto Gabi como Nico, el hijo de la familia, sufren acoso escolar debido a la peculiar profesión de los Mortimer. Ambos chicos encuentran refugio en el cementerio del pueblo, donde nadie se mete con ellos. Un día, el tallador de lápidas les cuenta una historia paranormal que los lleva a investigar. Sin embargo, el descubrimiento de un cadáver y unas joyas robadas los hace enfrentarse a la realidad. Cuando intentan alertar a los padres de Nico, descubren que alguien ha limpiado la escena del crimen y ha huido con las pruebas,...

Manrique, productora de ‘Celda 211’, ‘El Orfanato’ y ‘El Laberinto del Fauno’, dirige su primer largometraje. © TIFF

“Fin de Fiesta” (originalmente titulada “Una Luz al Mediodía”), la ópera prima de la productora Elena Manrique, tendrá su estreno mundial en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto en la sección Discovery.

En “Fin de Fiesta”, la vida de una rica divorciada se ve alterada cuando una joven inmigrante senegalesa se refugia en su cobertizo de herramientas.

Protagonizan la película Edith Martínez-Val, Sonia Barba (“La Amiga de mi Amiga”) y Beatriz Arjona (“Operación Barrio Inglés”).

La directora ha expresado su entusiasmo: «Siempre es un momento muy especial la primera vez que una película sale al mundo y se expone a sus primeros espectadores. Fin de Fiesta empieza su andadura en Toronto, concretamente en Discovery que es una sección dedicada a primeras y segundas películas, con una mirada diversa y valiente. En...

La serie se estrenará en la plataforma de streaming este año. © Atresplayer

“El Gran Salto”, la nueva serie original de Atresplayer protagonizada por Óscar Casas como el campeón olímpico Gervasio Deferr, se proyectará en el Festival de San Sebastián en septiembre.

La serie, compuesta por cinco episodios de 50 minutos, narra una de las historias más apasionantes del deporte español: la vida del campeón olímpico Gervasio Deferr, su camino hacia el éxito olímpico y su caída a los infiernos. Deferr ganó dos medallas de oro olímpicas en salto en Sydney 2000 y Atenas 2004, y una de plata en suelo en Pekín 2008. De personalidad muy compleja y autoexigente, no supo gestionar bien el delicado equilibrio éxito-fracaso, lo que le arrastró a una espiral de autodestrucción y desfases, que le distanciaron de su familia y amigos, hasta que finalmente abandonó la competición deportiva. A lo largo de los cinco episodios, veremos la dualidad entre...

The projects for the upcoming Venice Gap-Financing Market have been unveiled (27 feature-length fiction) and there’ll be several listed here projects that we’ll discuss at length next year when they start hitting the festival circuit of 2025 and especially, 2026. At the top of our most anticipated list, we find Ulrike Ottinger‘s The Blood Countess (which might still have Tilda Swinton and Isabelle Huppert attached) in almost ready to shoot mode. Also from Europe, we have Polish filmmaker Aga Woszczyńska readying Black Water. She premiered Silent Land in TIFF’s platform section in 2021. We also find Directors’ Fortnight favorite Shahrbanoo Sadat (2016’s Wolf and Sheep / 2019’s The Orphanage) rounding out final funds for No Good Men.…...

La serie se estrenará este año. © Atresplayer

“El Gran Salto”, la nueva serie original de Atresplayer protagonizada por Óscar Casas como el campeón olímpico Gervasio Deferr, ha finalizado su rodaje y hace públicas sus primeras imágenes.

La serie, compuesta por cinco episodios de 50 minutos, narra una de las historias más apasionantes del deporte español: la vida del campeón olímpico Gervasio Deferr, su camino hacia el éxito olímpico y su caída a los infiernos. Deferr ganó dos medallas de oro olímpicas en salto en Sydney 2000 y Atenas 2004, y una de plata en suelo en Pekín 2008. De personalidad muy compleja y autoexigente, no supo gestionar bien el delicado equilibrio éxito-fracaso, lo que le arrastró a una espiral de autodestrucción y desfases, que le distanciaron de su familia y amigos, hasta que finalmente abandonó la competición deportiva. A lo largo de los cinco episodios, veremos la dualidad entre dos momentos vitales de Deferr:...

Cold Meat took No. 9 on the Netflix global Top 10 chart. The indie 2024 survival movie was watched for 5.8 million hours in a single week. Cold Meat was perfectly poised to become a Netflix hit after the success of Society of the Snow.

Cold Meat has become a global Netflix hit. A co-production between the United Kingdom and Canada, Cold Meat is a snowy survival thriller movie along the lines of The Mountain Between Us and 2010's Frozen, but with a supernatural twist. It follows a man who rescues a waitress from an abusive ex, only to end up trapped in his broken-down car in a snowy ravine, fighting for survival against a cannibalistic spirit from the forest. The movie, which had a limited theatrical release in February 2024, stars Downton Abbey's Allen Leech and Doom: Annihilation's Nina Bergman.

Netflix has now calculated their official list of the Top 10 most-watched English-language movies...

International sales and distribution outfit Pink Parrot Media has closed several key deals for Doce Entertainment and Mr. Miyagi Films’ animated kids and family feature “Hanna and the Monsters.”

Agreements have been made with World Visions for Cis, Boxoo for South Korea, Front Row for the Middle East, Gpi for the Baltics, Cinetel for Hungary, Wediacorp for Turkey and Movie Company for Benelux.

Directed by Lorena Ares, “Hanna and the Monsters” unspools in a hidden world where monsters hide from humans that they fear. The monster’s world is thrown into upheaval when four-year-old Hanna finds a portal to Monsterville in her closet.

In Cannes this week, Pink Parrot will also launch world sales (outside of Spain) for the newly acquired second film in a planned trilogy for the franchise, “Hanna and the Forgotten Christmas.” Currently in production, the sequel will be ready for distribution in the first quarter of...

The Cannes Film Festival has named the eight members of its main Competition jury who will join previously announced president Greta Gerwig in deciding the Palme d’Or and other key prizes at 77th edition running from May 14 to 25.

They are Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, U.S. actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green, Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, Spanish director and screenwriter J.A. Bayona, Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda and French actor and producer Omar Sy.

The wife and long-time collaborator of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, screenwriter and photographer Ceylan co-wrote 2014 Palme d’Or winner Winter Sleep and also took co-writing credits on Cannes selected films Three Monkeys (Best Director Prize 2008), Once upon a time in Anatolia (Grand Prix 2011), The Wild Pear Tree (2018) and About Dry Grasses (2023).

Ceylan also appeared as an actress and took art director credits on her husband’s early films...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the eight jurors who will be joining jury president Greta Gerwig for the event’s 2024 edition (May 14-25).

They are American actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green, French actor and producer Omar Sy, Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, Spanish director and screenwriter Juan Antonio Bayona, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, and Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino.

The jury will award the Palme d’Or to one of the 22 films in competition at the closing ceremony on May 25. Anatomy Of A Fall picked up the top prize last year.

Descúbrelo todo sobre el thriller emocional producido por J.A. Bayona. © Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures ha publicado el tráiler y el póster de “Caída Libre”, un thriller emocional producido por Juan Antonio Bayona que promete ser una adición más al tropo del ‘artista obsesionado’ (ese tropo que vemos en “Whiplash” o “Cisne Negro”).

El filme está protagonizado por Belén Rueda en el papel de una autoritaria entrenadora de gimnasia rítmica cuya vida personal se resquebraja. A sus 60 años, Marisol (Rueda), Es una entrenadora emblemática de gimnasia rítmica de élite, la mejor. Es metódica, controladora, autoritaria, dominante, se irrita con facilidad y carece de la más mínima capacidad de autocrítica. Ha construido un mundo a su medida, que se resquebraja el día en que Octavio, su marido, le confiesa que se marcha de casa para rehacer su vida con una mujer más joven a la que ha dejado embarazada. Ella se embarca...

It’s a star-studded Marbella of the 1980s, and the glam Andalusian backdrop frames an opulent narrative that fuses suspense, betrayal and slow-simmering vengeance in the Atresmedia original series “Eva & Nicole,” teased by its producers – Spain’s Atresmedia TV (“Veneno”) alongside Good Mood (“Cristo y Rey”) – at the MipDrama showcase on April 7, a precursor to the broader MipTV international series market in Cannes, running April 8-10.

Handling global distribution, Atresmedia TV International Sales will attend MipTV.

One of only 10 international series selected by the MipDrama jury, the eight-episode affair is directed by David Molina, Antonio Hernández and Álvaro Vicario and structured around a fast-paced script written by Daniel Écija, Patricia Trueba, Andrés Martín Soto, Iñaki San Román, Paula López Cuervo and César Mendizábal.

The series opens with gusto at Nicole’s, the social club named after its owner who is framed from the back as she fiercely pulls open...

Top Spanish Titles brought to market at MipTV:

“Dating in Barcelona,” (Filmax)

Produced by Filmax’s Arca, Catalan public broadcaster 3Cat and Prime Video in Spain, a first season of “Dating in Barcelona” bowed last year in Spain to big ratings, both on its first-window debut on 3Cat and on Prime Video, where it became one of the streaming service’s most-watched debuts. A modern take on romance and sex in an online age, “Dating in Barcelona” also reflects a swing in TV towards a lighter, more episodic fare, whether in crime thrillers or other categories. Each episode features two dates which, as Variety has observed, play off each other. Powered in creative terms by Pau Freixas, behind iconic series from “Red Band Society” To “I Know Who You Are” And “Todos Mienten,” All Produced By Filmax, “Dating In Barcelona” features a top-tier cast, this time round in Season...

The directors have fun sending up TV conventions, as a failing host attempts to revive his career by communing with a demon, supposedly possessing a teenage girl

3

The likes of The Orphanage and The Conjuring have shown that the recent past is not just a foreign country, but a downright scary one. This horror, also set in the 1970s, lies on the same kitsch-uncanny continuum, with a fine ambassador in the shape of sickly faced David Dastmalchian, playing on-the-wane US late-night variety show host Jack Delroy. Seen creeping it up everywhere in character roles over the last few years – from a Harkonnen mentat in Dune to one of Oppenheimer’s detractors, as well as Suicide Squad’s Polka-Dot Man – Dastmalchian gets a well-deserved lead role here.

Exclusive: Coming off two-time Oscar nominee and Netflix hit Society Of The Snow, J.A. Bayona is producing and presenting psychological horror Crazy Old Lady (Vieja Loca), which will star Goya, Cesar and Cannes best actress winner Carmen Maura (Volver) and Berlinale Silver Bear winner Daniel Hendler (Lost Embrace).

Bayona is producing the Spanish-language psychological horror-thriller with Studiocanal, Peliculas La Trini, Primo Content, Bambu Producciones and La Union De Los Rios.

The project is written and directed by Martín Mauregui (Carancho), who is directing his first solo feature after a successful career as a screenwriter working with directors such as Pablo Trapero, Santiago Mitre and most recently as dialogue writer on Bayona’s Society Of The Snow.

Currently filming in Buenos Aires, the Spanish-Argentinian co-production “focuses on Pedro, a man who receives a desperate message from an ex-girlfriend asking him to look after her senile mother, Alicia. What seems like a...

A Korean adaptation of psychological thriller Marrowbone is in production and being introduced to buyers at the EFM by K-Movie Entertainment.

The Secret House (working title) is based on the 2017 English-language Spanish film by Sergio G. Sanchez, which starred Anya Taylor-Joy, George MacKay, Charlie Heaton and Mia Goth, and premiered at Toronto. Sanchez is also known for writing J.A. Bayona’s The Orphanage and The Impossible.

The Korean version will mark the second feature of director Park Sang-min, whose satirical comedy I Haven’t Done Anything played New York Asian Film Festival and Tallinn in 2022.

The cast is led by...

Here’s the latest episode of The Filmmakers Podcast, part of the podcast roster here on Nerdly. If you haven’t heard the show yet, you can check out previous episodes on the official podcast site, whilst we’ll be featuring each and every new episode as it premieres.

For those unfamiliar with the series, The Filmmakers Podcast is a podcast about how to make films from micro-budget indie films to bigger-budget studio films and everything in between. Our hosts Giles Alderson, Dom Lenoir, Dan Richardson, Andrew Rodger and Cristian James talk about how to get films made, how to actually make them and how to try not to f… it up in their very humble opinion. Guests will come on and chat about their filmmaking experiences from directors, writers, producers and screenwriters, to actors, cinematographers and distributors.

The Filmmaker’s Podcast #377: J. A. Bayona – Society of the Snow,...

In the early 1970s, a rugby team from Uruguay set out for a match in Chile. Some brought friends or family members, some left them behind. On their small chartered plane, everyone was giddy with excitement. But as they made their way over the Andes, the plane started to descend — far too early. They struck a mountain and broke into pieces. Miraculously, some of the 45 passengers on board survived — but they faced perilous conditions.

From Gaudí and Goya award–winning director J.A. Bayona,Society of the Snow tells the near-impossible true story of the 1972 Andes flight disaster. Bayona’s first Spanish feature since 2007’s The Orphanage, the film closed out the 2023 Venice Film Festival and is nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. The tale is not for the faint of heart: For those not familiar with the story,...

Netflix might be known for pumping out a bewildering volume of "content," but the streaming service isn't just breathing new life into forgotten thrillers or showcasing terrible Spanish slashers. Often, amid the deluge of media, Netflix will serve up something decent, and "Society of the Snow" is the perfect example.

Spain's official 2024 Oscars submission for Best International Feature, "Society of the Snow" is the latest movie from "The Impossible" and "The Orphanage" director J.A. Bayona. Thus far, it seems to be the filmmaker's best effort, receiving critical acclaim and a nomination for Best Non-English Language Film at this year's Golden Globes. Now, as of January 4, 2024, it's available to stream on Netflix ... though if you haven't yet watched, you might want to prime yourself for the harrowing story told within.

"Society of the Snow" is a thriller that follows the survivors of a plane crash as they try to stay alive...

The doomed flight of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 remains one of the most astonishing stories of real life survival horror the world has ever known. Often called “the Miracle in the Andes,” this harrowing tale begins with a plane crash that left 12 dead and 33 stranded among the snowy mountain peaks of Argentina. With only a week’s worth of food, those left alive after the first few days were forced to eat the bodies of their fallen companions to survive the brutal cold and inhospitable environment. With the world assuming them dead, Fernando ‘Nando’ Parrado, and Roberto Canessa eventually made a desperate trek through the treacherous mountain range with little more than clothing assembled from the wreckage and a homemade sleeping bag. 72 days after the initial disaster, sixteen survivors emerged from the mountains, dirty, starving, but determined to live.

This incredible story has been told many times in memoirs, documentaries...

Behind the scenes of Society of the Snow.

All images courtesy of Netflix

by Chad Kennerk

While researching and preparing to make his 2012 survival film The Impossible, filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona came across the book La sociedad de la nieve by journalist Pablo Vierci. Though the story of the 1972 Andes accident was a familiar one, Bayona had never seen the account contextualised in the same way. Uruguayan native Vierci’s book, written 36 years after the tragic events, benefitted from distance, looking beyond the facts to provide a psychological approach to the circumstances and how they shaped the survivors’ lives. After completing The Impossible, Bayona bought the rights to Vierci’s book and began a decade-long journey to bring the story to the screen.

Society of the Snow marks the writer/director’s first Spanish language film since his 2007 directorial debut The Orphanage (El orfanato). A ghost story of a different kind,...

In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we look at Keane's Disconnected, directed by J.A. Bayona. J.A. Bayona is a master at turning horror films into dramas, and drama films into horror. Everyday life can turn horrific on a dime, and his grimmer scenes are filled with a sense of pathos: you do care about his protagonists. Even the ghosts, like in El Orfanato, get their moment of dramatic introspection. And everyday horrors get to feel almost sensationally horrific in the hands of J.A Bayona: the tsunami in The Impossible gets under the skin in a way few disaster movies do, by using tricks out of...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

With survival thriller Society of the Snow hitting select theaters in the U.S. back in December 2023 and now making its way to Netflix, it is only natural for viewers to get ready for the dramatization of the real tragedy that befell a Uruguayan rugby team back in 1972 by taking a look at director J.A. Bayona's other disaster movie, 2012's The Impossible. And, indeed, the film based on the true story of a family of tourists trapped in the aftermath of an earthquake followed by a tsunami in Thailand made its way to Netflix's top ten last November, just as audiences were gearing up for Society of the Snow. Chosen by Spain to be the country's official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, which will take place in March 2024, Society of the Snow also marks the director's return to his home country, at least...

Society of the Snow is a relentless survival film that grips viewers from the start with its authentic performances and the characters' intense, realistic decisions. Director J.A. Bayona's skill in incorporating CGI and suggesting horror in a grounded context shines throughout the film, making it a must-watch for fans of disaster movies. The movie explores the ethics of survival, posing thought-provoking questions about miracles, God, and the responsibility of storytellers in portraying true events.

If you're looking for a beautiful winter wonderland in movie theaters this Christmas weekend, Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve) fits the bill more than most, but it may make you want to avoid snow for the rest of your life. The film tells the remarkable and disturbing true story of a Uruguayan rugby team who flew to Chile in 1972; their day-long flight aboard Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 turned into a 72-day-long hell for the survivors,...

Ja Bayona’s powerful retelling of the 1972 rugby team’s flight that crashed in the Andes and the agonising decisions passengers took in order to stay alive

The story of the 1972 Uruguayan air crash in the remote Andes, and the ordeal of the survivors who resorted to cannibalism, is powerfully retold in this movie from Spanish director Ja Bayona. It is based on the book of the same name by Uruguayan journalist Pablo Vierci and not (or only indirectly) taken from Piers Paul Read’s pioneering 1974 classic Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors which popularised the idea that their cannibalism had become a kind of mysterious secular Eucharist, eating the blood and body of one’s fellow human beings to stave off death, in a profound spirit of fellowship and love.

Perhaps no movie about this extraordinary case can quite encompass what in some ways is its most poignant part: the aftermath,...

We made it to 2024! Or, rather, we've almost made it at the time of writing. It's been a long year wherein a historical dual strike that was prompted (and then unnecessarily prolonged) by studio greed brought the film and TV industry to a grinding halt for months. But all that's behind us now, and it's time for a fresh start. Even Netflix is turning over a new leaf by making viewership data available for just about every title on the platform. Well, sort of. It's still Netflix, so, of course, its newfound transparency comes with an asterisk or two.

Staying on the positive beat, things aren't slowing down on the Netflix front in January. In fact, after a 12-month period that saw the streamer releasing a veritable treasure trove of notable animated features, international films, and star-studded projects (be sure and peruse through the /Film team's ranking of the 12 best...

The newly restored Egyptian Theatre is welcoming a series of festive double features for cinephiles.

The Los Angeles-based theater is transforming into a holiday wonderland for acclaimed features, ranging from “Eyes Wide Shut” to “The Killer.” IndieWire exclusively announces the programming of curated double features that select “favorite new movies paired with classics ready for another moment in the spotlight,” per the Egyptian. The inaugural holiday series reflects on the best films of the year, pairing features with their creative inspirations.

Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” will screen Christmas Day after Netflix’s erotic thriller “Fair Play,” with Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein ode “Maestro” screening side by side with the 1961 film “West Side Story” in Ib Technicolor 35mm from the Academy Film Archive, featuring Bernstein’s music. Natalie Portman pulls double duty with “Black Swan” and Netflix’s “May December,” both screening December 27.

All double-bills are only $13, with...

Leave it to filmmaker Guillermo del Toro to instantly find the connection between supernatural horror film “The Orphanage,” the feature debut of J.A. Bayona that he produced, to the Spanish director’s latest film “Society of the Snow,” depicting the story of the survivors of the 1972 plane crash in the Andes.

Even though, on paper, both of Bayona’s films may seem like tough watches, in an exclusive video of the two directors’ chat about the Netflix release — chosen to be Spain’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar — recent Academy Award winner del Toro expressed the deeper intertwined theme of the two films: “There’s a strange thing that I know intimately because we collaborated from your first movie on, we’ve been friends for longer, but one would argue that ‘The Orphanage’ is a survivor’s guilt tale because every other kid in that orphanage died except...

What do moviegoers want to see right now? For decades, studios have had very specific answers to this question, but considering that 2023’s box office was dominated by two films called Barbie and Oppenheimer, it seems like those preconceived notions might be changing. When we look at the films already scheduled for 2024, there certainly seems to be a lot of familiarity that might be old hat.

But look again at a few of the auteur pieces that have already been slated. Even the blockbuster class looks surprisingly ambitious, with new works from the likes of George Miller, Denis Villeneuve, and Bong Joon-ho. There are also familiar favorites, such as a new Deadpool flick, and curious question marks–like Robert Eggers remaking the greatest vampire movie of all time more than a hundred years later. 2024 should be an interesting year at the movies. So here are a few to watch out for.

“To go back home with my people to shoot a movie was fantastic,” says director J.A. Bayona, whose film “Society of the Snow” has been selected as Spain’s entry for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards. “Every time I work in Hollywood I bring my people with me. It’s been a whole journey. I did my first movies in Spain, ‘The Orphanage,’ ‘The Impossible’ and ‘A Monster Calls.’ I established my voice. I wanted to show the world, ‘This is who I am.’ I moved to Hollywood. Then, doing this film after so many years, this is where I really like to be. I’m going back to my people. Being selected for the Oscars was extraordinary.”

We talked with Bayona as part of Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2023/2024 awards contenders. Watch our exclusive video interview above.

See Watch interviews...

Last month, the Netflix streaming service unveiled a teaser trailer for the Spanish-language survival thriller Society of the Snow, or La sociedad de la nieve, the latest project from director J.A. Bayona – whose credits include The Orphanage, The Impossible, A Monster Calls, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Now a full trailer for the film has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.

Society of the Snow will be streaming on the Netflix service as of January 4th.

An adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same name, written by Pablo Vierci, Society of the Snow is about the Uruguayan rugby team which, en route to Chile in 1972, crash-landed on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. The survivors were forced to resort to extreme measures in order to stay alive. That is the same real-life event that director Frank Marshall brought to the screen with the 1993 film Alive,...

From director J.A. Bayona, the visionary filmmaker behind The Orphanage, A Monster Calls, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, comes the Netflix survival thriller Society of the Snow, which is based on both true events and the same-titled book by Pablo Vierci.

Society of the Snow will premiere in select theaters on December 22, 2023, followed by the film’s Netflix arrival on January 4, 2024. Watch the brand new official trailer below.

In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, crashed in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived the accident.

Trapped in one of the most hostile and inaccessible environments on the planet, they have to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.

The film’s cast includes Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi, Diego Vegezzi, Fernando Contigiani García, Esteban Kukuriczka, Rafael Federman, Francisco Romero, Valentino Alonso, Tomás Wolf, Agustín Della Corte,...

For fans of horror but not blood and guts, there are plenty of scary movies that aren't too gory. Horror often embraces disturbing visuals designed to unsettle audiences, but that's not for everyone, and fortunately for them, that's not all that the genre has to offer. Horror doesn't need to be shocking to be unnerving. Sometimes all it takes is a bit of creativity.

Many great horror movies rely on suspense rather than gore. They excel at building a sense of unease without resorting to gruesome special effects, making them perfect for those who prefer a more psychological approach to horror. From classics like Rosemary’s Baby to modern gems like Get Out, these movies demonstrate that a well-crafted plot with a masterful use of tension can be just as terrifying.

Related: 15 Best Horror Movies Of All Time, Ranked

Poltergeist (1982)

While blood and bodily fluids don’t make an appearance in Poltergeist,...

Netflix has dropped the teaser trailer for director J.A. Bayona's survival thriller Society of the Snow. Bayona (director of The Impossible and The Orphanage) acts as director, producer, and screenplay writer on Society of the Snow. He worked with Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques, and Nicolás Casariego on the film's screenplay and brought on Don't Breathe's Pedro Luque to act as the director of photography. The Spanish film features rising Uruguayan and Argentine actors Enzo Vogrincic (A Twelve-Year Night), Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella (Pinamar) and Felipe González (El Cazador). Belén Atienza and Sandra Hermida work as producers alongside Bayona to bring the story to life.

The latest project from director J.A. Bayona – whose credits include The Orphanage, The Impossible, A Monster Calls, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – is the Spanish-language survival thriller Society of the Snow, or La sociedad de la nieve. We’ve previously heard that the film will be streaming on the Netflix service as of January 4th and now, with just over two months to go until that date arrives, a trailer for it has arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.

An adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same name, written by Pablo Vierci, Society of the Snow is about the Uruguayan rugby team which, en route to Chile in 1972, crash-landed on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. The survivors were forced to resort to extreme measures in order to stay alive. That is the same real-life event that director Frank Marshall brought to...