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Led by Ana Endara’s widely acclaimed feature debut “Beloved Tropic,” this year’s standouts vying for the Panama Film Festival’s (Iff Panama) Audience Award includes such gems as Guatemalan Jayro Bustamante’s latest opus, “Rita,” Mexico’s Sundance winner, “Sujo,” Berlinale Best Director winner Nelson Carlo de los Santos’ “Pepe,” a smattering of documentaries and more animated features such as “Olivia and the Clouds,” sign of a burgeoning interest in Central America for the genre. Iff Panama runs April 3 – 6.

“Beloved Tropic” (“Querido tropico”) Ana Endara, Panama, Colombia

The opening night film. Winner of the festival’s Su Mirada post-production award last year. Director Ana Endara’s fiction feature debut is set in Panama City where it follows Ana María, a Colombian caregiver hiding a secret, and Mercedes, a high-society woman (played by Paulina García) facing early dementia. As their lives intertwine, they form an unexpected bond, navigating caregiving...

Mr. Wick is again trying to retire in John Wick: Chapter 4. The 2023 John Wick installment has Baba Yaga meeting old friends and making new enemies as the High Table hunts him down for everything he did in the last three movies. The nail-biter sequel to the action franchise is set in various international locations, including Japan and France, where its diverse cast impresses in fight sequences more gruesome than ever.

Some of Keanu Reeves' co-stars in the fourth chapter are seen from the first movie, like Ian McShane and Lance Reddick as the manager and the concierge of the Continental Hotel in New York City. New cast members like Bill Skarsgård and Natalia Tena are fantastic additions, and their characters steal the show in their scenes. Even newcomer Rina Sawayama shines in a minor role, leaving no doubt that the cast of John Wick 4 is outstanding.

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L.A.-based Outsider Pictures, a U.S. distribution hub for Spanish-language cinema, has snagged North American rights to three International Oscar entries to the 97th Academy Awards: Costa Rica’s “Memories of a Burning Body,” Spain’s “Saturn Return” and Switzerland’s “Queens” (Reinas”), directed by Peruvian-born helmer, Klaudia Reynicke.

In addition, it has picked up Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed” by Argentina’s Hernán Rosselli and Toronto Platform awardee “They Will Be Dust,” starring Chile’s Alfredo Castro and Spain’s Angela Molina.

“I think the recent acquisitions from Outsider reflect the exciting and challenging cinema being produced in Latin America and Spain. These may not be star driven or hugely commercial films, but like most independent cinema, they are labors of love, passion pieces that film-makers have worked so hard for and that any company would be proud to distribute,” said Outsider Pictures founder-ceo Paul Hudson.

Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia,” Carlos Marqués-Marcet “They Will be Dust” and Yeo Siew Hua’s “Stranger Eyes” all won big at Spain’s auteurist haven Valladolid Film Festival on Saturday, in a second edition under José Luis Cienfuegos whose prizes served as a vindication of the changes he has wrought at the festival as well as an indication of some ways European arthouse is going.

All three directors’ awards build on prior upbeat reception. Playing Cannes Premiere, “Misericordia,” which scooped Valladolid’s best picture Golden Spike and its screenplay trophy, was hailed by Variety as a “darkly comic backwoods fable of pansexual desire and small-town sociopathy” which marks a “welcome re-embrace of the streamlined murdery perversities of his terrific ‘Stranger by the Lake.'”

The Valladolid jury, made up of Greek director Sofia Exarchou, Spanish actress Aida Folch, critic and editor Devika Girish, German producer Ingmar Trost and Spanish director and writer Luis López Carrasco,...

Carlos Marqués-Marcet brings life to a grave situation in “They Will Be Dust,” realizing that when so many tiptoe around the subject of death, it might not be such a stretch to put an elderly couple in ballet shoes if they’re thinking it’s time to choose for themselves to shuffle off their mortal coil. The unconventional drama proves moving in more ways than one when following the septuagenarian pair that has booked a one-way trip to Switzerland, achieving a level of intimacy unusual even for its reliably sensitive director when music and dance can crack open what mere dialogue cannot.

Marqués-Marcet’s approach to his fourth feature may be unexpected, but the subject seems inevitable when the director has spent his previous three films considering different stages of life. After his impressive debut “10,000Km” involved a couple too young to see the issues that a long-distance relationship might pose,...

In “They Will Be Dust,” Carlos Marqués-Marcet, the Goya-winning director of “10,000 Km,” heads into a genre-bending exploration of life, love, and death. World Premiering at this year’s stacked Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform strand, the film is far from a conventional musical. It fuses contemporary dance and musical elements with the stark realities of a right-to-die story.

Co-written with Clara Roquet, whose “Libertad” garnered acclaim at both the Goya and Gaudí awards, the film is co-produced by Lastor Media, Alina Film, and Kino Produzioni— part of the same team behind Carla Simón’s Golden Bear-winning “Alcarràs.” Latido Films handles international sales.

The film centers on Claudia, played by Ángela Molina, who decides not to wait for her terminal illness to strip her of agency. Instead, she and her beloved Flavio embark on a plan to end their lives together in Switzerland. Their adult children are particularly appalled...

Una tragicomedia musical protagonizada por Ángela Molina, Alfredo Castro y Mònica Almirall. © Elástica Films

“Polvo Serán”, una tragicomedia musical de Carlos Marqués-Marcet, tendrá su estreno mundial en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto en la sección competitiva Platform.

En “Polvo Serán”, tras serle diagnosticada una enfermedad terminal, Claudia decide hacer su último viaje a Suiza. Flavio, que lleva más de cuarenta años sin separarse de ella, decide acompañarla en este viaje sin retorno.

La película, escrita por el propio Carlos Marques-Marcet, junto a Clara Roquet (“Libertad”) y Coral Cruz (“Verónica”), está protagonizada por Ángela Molina (“Los Abrazos Rotos”), Alfredo Castro (“El Club”) y Mònica Almirall (“El Médico”).

En palabras del director, Carlos Marques-Marcet: «En esta mezcla de géneros, el musical tendrá la función de permitir acercarnos a estas complejas emociones y al agujero insondable de la muerte allá donde las palabras no llegan, expresado a través del cuerpo y de la música.

The Toronto International Film Festival unveiled the 10 films that will comprise its Platform lineup, a section that is intended to highlight emerging filmmakers from around the globe.

The selection includes “Pedro Páramo,” the feature directing debut of acclaimed cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto; “Viktor,” a documentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine told by war photographer Olivier Sarbil; and “The Wolves Always Come at Night,” Gabrielle Brady’s look at the impact of climate change on Mongolian herders. There’s also Tallulah H. Schwab’s Kafkaesque “Mr. K” featuring the mercurial Crispin Glover as a traveling magician, as well as Goya-winner Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s contemporary dance-musical and ensemble drama “They Will Be Dust.”

Nacho Vigalondo’s “Daniela Forever,” which stars Henry Golding and “The White Lotus” breakout Beatrice Grannò, will be the section’s opening film. The films represent 17 countries including Spain, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Mexico and Ukraine.

This...

Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) competitive Platform section will open with Daniela Forever by Nacho Vigalondo, whose Colossal premiered at the festival in 2016.

The 10-title selection also includes Mexico-set Pedro Páramo from renowned cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, 10,000Km filmmaker Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s They Will Be Dust, and Gabrielle Bradys’ hybrid documentary The Wolves Always Come At Night set in Mongolia.

The Platform jury will be led by Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan whose Seven Veils premiered at TIFF last year. His two fellow jurors are South Korean filmmaker Hur Jin-ho who also played the festival last year with A Normal Family,...

Catalan films routinely punch above their weight at high-profile international festivals: Think 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs.” That trend looks primed to continue in 2024.

Catalan auteur Albert Serra will debut “Afternoons of Solitude,” co-produced by Catalan companies Andergraun Films and Lacima, with Ideale Audience and Tardes de Soledad.

A fall fest bet, “They Will Be Dust,” from Carlos Marqués- Marcet, is produced by Catalonia’s Lastor Media alongside Chile’s Alina Film and Kino Produzioni in Italy.

Few regions boast a lineup of female filmmakers as impressive as Catalonia. This year, new films from Goya Award winners Pilar Palomero (“Glimmers”) and Belén Funes (“The Turtles”) are strong contenders for festival recognition.

With the backing of Catalonia’s Minority Co-Production Fund, four international co-prods are poised to make a significant impact on this year’s festival circuit. Keep an eye out for Javier Rebollo’s “Close to the Sultan”, Calia Atan...

Over the last seven years or so, the ever more capitalized Catalan industry, much based in capital Barcelona, has driven into domestic co-production with other parts of Spain. One result: an exciting new generation of young directors and producers, often women, which have scored a Berlin Golden Bear (Carla Simon’s “Alcarràs”) and best lead performance.

The Catalan film-tv industry is now, however, in the throes of a gathering industry makeover which is showing its first fruits. One driver, as so often in Europe, is public sector funding.

In 2019, total allocated Catalan government audiovisual funding stood at €12.6 million ($13.7 million). It rose to €40.8 million ($44.5 million) in 2022 and will rise again to an estimated €50 million ($54.5 million) in 2024, if the Catalan Parliament approves the budget, says Edgar Garcia, director of the governmental culture industry unit Icec.

In response to ramped-up funding, Catalonia industry has grown vibrantly. 130 execs and talent, representing 80 companies, attend 2024’s Berlin Film Market.

Madrid, Spain — Industry prizes will be announced on Friday, Festival awards one day later. Yet even by Thursday evening, as this year’s Malaga Festival’s Mafiz-Spanish Screenings headed into its home straits, Spain film and TV industry was sending strong signs of their consolidation as an international market power.

That cut multiple ways. Following, 10 provisional takes on this year’s event:

The Biggest Malaga Ever, By a Head

Final attendance has blasted past last year’s 1,600, in itself a massive hike on years prior, tracking by Thursday at 1,700 attendees from 61 countries at Mafiz, Malaga’s industry arm. The Spanish Screenings alone account for getting on half of those accreditations. “The market’s been very good,” said Vicente Canales at Film Factory. “There’s been enough buyers, spending more time watching Spanish films. At Berlin and Cannes, they just don’t have the time. And Screenings attendance has been high.

International co-production is led by Tono Folguera at Spain’s Lastor Media.

Carlos Marques-Marcet, who took the top prize at the Málaga Film Festival in 2014 with 10,000Km, is readying his new project, the musical drama They Will Be Dust.

The film will be a co-production beteen Spain’s Lastor Media, Switzerland’s Alina Film and Italy’s Kino Produzioni. Backing is in place from Eurimages, Icaa and the Catalonia film institute Icec.

They Will Be Dust is about a woman diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor who decides to undertake a last trip to Switzerland to decide how and when...

Exclusive: Proximity Media, the company behind Judas and the Black Messiah, is pushing further into podcasts with the hire of Pushkin Industries’ Paola Mardo.

Mardo joins the company, which is run by Ryan Coogler, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Ludwig Göransson, Archie Davis and Peter Nicks, Kalia Booker King and Rebecca Cho as SVP and Head of Audio.

She was previously an executive producer at Malcolm Gladwell’s company, where she produced the Apple Fitness+ audio series Time to Walk. Before that, she produced podcasts including The Los Angeles Times’ Asian Enough, Kcrw’s Good Food and Kpcc’s The Frame and she created and hosted Long Distance, a series about stories in the Filipino diaspora.

Mardo will build out a full audio team with the goal of producing multiple original podcasts as well as podcasts designed to supplement and support its films and television series. The company is behind the...

Rapidly emerging as one of Spain’s foremost hothouses for new producer and creative talent, the Ecam Madrid Film School’s Incubator program has chosen five titles for its 2022 program:

“Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes,” “Disposable,” “Macrame,” “Festina Lente” and “Ripli.”

Launched to connect early career talent in Spain with Europe’s film industry, the 5th Incubator runs from Feb. 23 through July.

The program will be overseen by writer-director Rafa Alberola, who serves as the new manager of The Screen, Ecam’s industry initiative umbrella.

This year’s lineup announcements comes as one Incubator project, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s “Lullaby,” is set to world premiere in Berlin’s Panorama section later this week.

Chema García Ibarra’s “Sacred Spirit” proved a standout at August’s Locarno Festival, another Incubator debut, Javier Marco’s Javier Marco’s “Josefina” was for many the most notable Spanish feature debut...

“Why don’t you come around for dinner?,” Barcelona lifeguard Gerard Casals (Dani Rovira) asks his boss, Oscar Camps (Eduard Fernández), at the beginning of “Mediterráneo: The Law of the Sea.”

“I’ve got other plans,” says Camps. Cut to his sitting on his sofa, eating a warmed-up microwave dinner watching TV on his laptop.

Then Camps catches a news report featuring the horrific images of 3-year-old Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, his lifeless body lying on a Turkish beach, washed by waves, after the dingy he was in capsized.

Two days later, Oscar and Gerard are sitting on a beach in Lesbos, Greece, looking across at the hulking headlands of Turkey, just seven miles away across a strait that separates Asia from the European Union. “People are dying in the sea; we’re lifeguards,” he says. So begins Camps and Casals’ life mission, which becomes the now celebrated Ngo Open Arms,...

Libertad

Another title we thought would appear in 2020 was the debut of screenwriter Clara Roquet, who co-wrote Carlos Marques-Marcet’s 10,000km (2014), Jaime Rosales’ Petra (a Cannes 2018 in Directors’ Fortnight selection) and upcoming films such as Antonio Méndez Esparza’s horror flick Que nadie duerma and Mounia Akl’s debut Costa Brava Lebanon. The highest ranked directorial debut on our list, Roquet’s film stars Nora Navas, Vicky Pena, Nicolle Garcia, Maria Rodriguez Soto and David Selvas. Libertad, was produced by Tono Folguera, Sergi Moreno, Stefan Schmitz and Maria Zamora through Barcelona’s Lastor Media, Madrid’s Avalon and Snowglobe. The film (which landed a prize at the San Sebastian’s 7th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum) is lensed by Gris Jordana.…...

A beloved astrologer’s spiritual and sexual influence is lovingly recounted in Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado.

“Love is the essence of everything,” we read in the first Mucho Mucho Amor trailer, and the new Netflix Original Documentary has nothing but love for the iconic astrologer Walter Mercado. Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado will hit the streamer globally on July 8.

The documentary was directed by Cristina Costantini (Science Fair) and Kareem Tabsch (The Last Resort), and produced by Alex Fumero (I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson). They got “unprecedented access to Walter during his post-fame seclusion” and were invited into “his home and interior world,” according to the press release. The documentary captures the psychic entertainer’s final two years, “when the pioneering icon grappled with aging and his legacy, as he prepared for one last star-studded spectacle.”

During his long career,...