We are very proud to announce that FIN (The End) has received the Silver Méliès Award at the Imagine Film Festival and we are also thankful to the jury for such kind words as:
"The jury rewards a film in which it seems to be of vital importance whether or not questions get answered. A film that has the courage to conceal, where others mainly want to reveal. A film that plays with our expectations and leads us in an unexpected direction. A warm-blooded film that creates the kind of suspense in full sunlight, for which others think they need chilly darkness. Tension that gets tightened and released with minimal means. Elegant and assured, the maker takes us into another world that nevertheless is still ours: mankind, too small to resist a mystery that is too large for us to comprehend. A story of all times."
FIN (The End) is a supernatural thriller produced by 3 of Spain’s top production companies with extensive international experience: Mod Producciones (Biutiful, Agora), Apaches Entertainment (The Impossible), Antena 3 Films (Red Lights, Julia’s Eyes).
Supernatural Thriller / 2012 / Spain / Spanish
A group of old friends gets together for a weekend in a mountain cabin. Years have gone by and yet nothing seems to have changed between them. But lurking behind the laughter and stories is a murky episode from the past that continues to haunt them. A strange, sudden incident alters their plans, leaving them stranded and with no line of communication to the outside world. On their way for help, the group starts to disintegrate, just as a new natural order is unveiled before their astonished eyes.
CREW
Director: Jorge Torregrossa
Scriptwriters: Sergio G. Sánchez (The Impossible), Jorge Guerricaechevarría (Cell 211)
Producers: Fernando Bovaira (Biutiful), Enrique L. Lavigne (28 Weeks Later), Mercedes Gamero (Red Lights)
Delegate Producer A3 Films: Ricardo García Arrojo
Director of Photography: José David Montero (Apollo 18)
Music: Lucio Godoy (All About my Mother)
CAST
Raúl Arévalo (I'm so Excited, Cousinhood)
Alexandra Jiménez (Spanish Movie)
Carlos Areces (I'm so Excited, The Last Circus)
Aura Garrido (Crematorium)
We are very proud to announce that GHOST GRADUATION has won both the Golden Raven - Grand Prix Award and the Audience Award at the 31st Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival. After the tremendous audience reaction in Toronto, Javier Ruiz Caldera's second film has now wowed and amused yet another festival audience, as well as its jury.
In addition, GHOST GRADUATION got even one more notch on its road to success since it brought in the second best per screen average after Oblivion in its first weekend in Italy.
Fantasy, Comedy / 2012 / Spain / Spanish / US Release in 2013 by Fox
Modesto sometimes sees dead people. His luck changes when he lands a job at Monforte where five students have turned the prestigious school into a house of horrors. Modesto is charged with getting all five kids to pass their senior year and to get out of there once and for all.
GHOST GRADUATION is one of the most original comedies in recent years. Ghosts, high school fun, love and 80’s music all have their place in this production where The Breakfast Club meets The Sixth Sense.
CREW
Director: Javier Ruiz Caldera (Spanish Movie)
Producers: Francisco Sánchez (Spanish Movie), Eneko Lizarraga (Spanish Movie), Simón de Santiago (Agora), Fernando Bovaira (The Others) Edmon Roch (Lope), Sandra Hermida (Biutiful)
Scriptwriters: Cristóbal Garrido, Adolfo Valor
Director of Photography: Arnau Valls (Eva)
Special Effects: Lluis Castells (The Orphanage), Jordi San Agustín (Transsiberian)
CAST
Raúl Arévalo (I'm so Excited, Cousinhood)
Alexandra Jiménez (Spanish Movie)
Carlos Areces (I'm so Excited, The Last Circus)
Aura Garrido (Crematorium)
Film Factory Entertainment is attending the Marché du Film and are pleased to meet with buyers.
Location: Riviera A5 Cinema from Spain stand, Film Factory booth.
Schedule a meeting: t.oliete@filmfactory.es
By JOHN HOPEWELL
MADRID -- Film Factory Entertainment is partnering with "The Impossible" producer Apaches Ent., comedy specialists Think Studio and Ciskul and broadcaster-backed Antena 3 Films on romantic comedy "Three Many Weddings."
A groundbreaking comedy, the Warners-distribbed "Weddings" aims to consolidate a new business model for mainstream filmed entertainment.
Apaches, Think Studio, Ciskul and Antena 3 Films produce. Film Factory has acquired worldwide sales rights. It present first footage at Berlin.
Helmed by Javier Ruiz Caldera, whose latest comedy, "Ghost Graduation," was a Fox pickup for Nort and Latin America, "Weddings" turns on a woman, played by Inma Cuesta ("Cousins") who questions her love-life when invited to three former boyfriends' weddings in just one month.
In Spain, comedies were once thought predominantly local fare, reveled in Spanish references, and featured often comically dysfunctional men.
No more. " 'Three More Weddings' combines a Farrelly brothers' humor with a 'Bridget Jones'-style central character," said Maria Angulo, who produced for Apaches.
"The comedy could take place anywhere."
With Spanish B.O. largely depressed by recession, producers can't risk one roll of the dice just makin local movies.
"Weddings" is, nevertheless, a prime B.O. hit candidate for Spain.
"Warner Bros. has set a Dec. 6 release date for "Weddings," prime box office real estate, kicking off one of Spain's most popular bank holidays.
Antena 3 Films TV group owner Antena 3 will market "Weddings" across its powerful TV channel bouquet, a strategy that has goosed recent B.O. perfs for Spanish movies from "The Impossible" downwards.
Emiliano de Pablos contributed to this article.
A domestic box office hit that has earned unanimous laurels from critics, UNIT 7 now has 16 more notches on its road to success.
Today, the Spanish Film Academy announced that UNIT 7 has raked in 16 nominations for their Goya Awards, including such stand-outs as Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Lead Male for Antonio de la Torre.
Film Factory Entertainment will be attending the upcoming European Film Market and are pleased to meet with potential buyers.
Location: Stand #21 Cinema from Spain
in Martin Gropius Bau, Film Factory booth.
Schedule a meeting: t.oliete@filmfactory.es
UNIT 7 is an action thriller from talented director Alberto Rodríguez
who surprised us with his films 7 VIRGINS and AFTER.
CAST
Mario Casas (Neon Flesh, 3 Meters Above the Sky)
Antonio de la Torre (Cousinhood, Neon Flesh)
Inma Cuesta (Cousinhood, The Sleeping Voice)
Joaquín Núñez
José Miguel Rivera “Poga”
Estefanía de los Santos
CREW
Director: Alberto Rodríguez (7 Virgins, After)
Executive Producer: José Antonio Félez (Cousinhood, DarkBlueAlmostBlack)
Producers: José Antonio Félez, Gervasio Iglesias (Juan of the Dead)
Scriptwriter: Rafael Cobos (7 Virgins)
Story: Rafael cobos, Alberto Rodríguez
Director of Photography: Alex Catalán (Even the Rain, The Sleeping Voice)
Original Score: Julio De La Rosa (Cousinhood, Neon Flesh, 7 Virgins)
Editor: José M. G. Moyano (7 Virgins)
A fascinating if frustrating apocalyptic drama, Jorge Torregrossa's debut, "The End," is less about big bangs, and more about questioning silences.
By JONATHAN HOLLAND
A fascinating if frustrating apocalyptic drama, Jorge Torregrossa's debut, "The End," is less about big bangs, and more about questioning silences. Adopting the high-risk strategy of raising dramatic and existential questions to which it offers no answers, this stylishly made tale of a group of fortysomethings who mysteriously disappear fuses low-grade sci-fi with high-minded ideas, so that auds prepared to go all the way with its crazed logic will enjoy it more than those seeking straightforward thrills. Visually polished and always intriguing, the pic confirms that, whatever its failings, Spanish genre cinema isn't lacking ambition. Presales have been brisk.
Accompanied by girlfriend Eva (Clara Lago), Felix (Daniel Grao) returns for a reunion with his old gang at the remote rural house where they partied a little too wildly 20 years before. On the journey, Felix briefly and somewhat obviously outlines who the others are for Eva's and the audience's benefit.
The friends include good-looking Casanova type Hugo (model Andres Velencoso, making his debut) and his partner, insecure Cova (Blanca Romero); Felix's former lover, Maribel (Maribel Verdu), now with troubled Rafa (Antonio Garrido); madcap artist Sergio (Miquel Fernandez); and good-hearted Sara (Carmen Ruiz). Significantly absent is Angel (Eugenio Mira), known by nickname as "the Prophet," but whom nobody wants to discuss, to Eva's irritation.
Old tensions quickly rise to the surface, but are soon forgotten when, following a big whooshing noise and some activity in the night sky, the electricity fails. Neither cars nor cell phones work, and overnight, Rafa inexplicably disappears. Heading to the nearest house the next day, the friends find it suddenly abandoned. As they continue through a ravine to the nearest village, a day's walk away through stunning, rocky landscapes, they begin to realize they may be the only people left, some massive evil force is at work, and nobody has a clue what it is. High-profile writers Sergio G. Sanchez ("The Orphanage") and Jorge Guerricaechevarria ("Cell 211") may know, although the results suggest they've simply overreached this time.
After an hour, the pic enters anything-goes territory, featuring striking situations and images that have been drained of apparent meaning. Especially evocative is a scene in which the characters wander speechless among airplane wreckage. As the stakes rise, the protags' plight becoming increasingly surreal, as when they escape on bicycles from a pack of German Shepherds -- a scene that starts out risibly and ends with the pic's most quietly devastating moment.
While all the supernatural hijinks are apparently being used to explore isolation, unhappiness and the onset of middle age, among other themes, the problem is that the film can be shaped to suit practically any interpretation. The links between all this and the mysterious Angel are similarly implied but not connected. Daringly, or maybe just lazily, most of the expectations the script sets up remain unfulfilled, leaving auds to decide whether the results are thought-provoking or vacuous. Luckily, philosophical dialogues are kept short, though surely there should be a moratorium on the fact that the light that reaches the Earth is from stars long dead (reprised here by Sanchez from his script for "The Impossible").
The cast is too large for truly individualized characters, and some of them are gone too soon anyway, but in general, the female thesps, especially Lago, give stronger, more nuanced performances than their male counterparts. The sounds of nature are evocatively brought to the fore, while the town and landscapes, shot in gorgeous colors by d.p. Jose David Montero, are sheer eye candy.
After winning the foreign language film Oscar in 2010 for "The Secret in Their Eyes," Argentinean director Juan Jose Campanella didn't lack for top offers from Hollywood. The film earned a standout $6.3 million in the U.S. for Sony Pictures Classics, and the NYU-trained helmer was no stranger to U.S. production, having helmed episodes of "Law & Order" and "House," and copping Daytime Emmys for segs in HBO's "Lifestories: Families in Crisis."
Yet his next production is neither U.S.-based nor, for that matter, live action. It is, however, top-shelf. At $20 million, the stereo 3D "Foosball," a soccer-themed distant cousin to "Toy Story" and "Wreck-It Ralph," is the most expensive Latin American animated film ever. UIP has picked up the film for Argentina (where it's slated to bow June 20) and Spain, and has bought rights for the rest of Latin America.
"('Foosball') came at a moment in life when I wanted to stretch my muscles, to put my feet in the mud again, as we say in Spanish," Campanella says. "After doing so many big live action movies for Argentina and mainstream U.S. TV, where everything is so compartmentalized and professional, I wanted to go back to my craft, to basics."
The toon, inspired by Argentine writer Roberto Fontanarrosa's "Memoirs of a Right Winger," centers on a boy whose foosball figures come alive. Their fighting spirit helps him as a teen to take on a professional soccer team, save his hometown and win back his childhood sweetheart. Campanella presented a short reel of excerpts at the recent Ventana Sur mart in Buenos Aires.
"Kids face rights of passage, and acceptance of reality's hard facts. In 'Foosball,' it's the other way round: They learn about magic in real life," says Campanella, who cites 1968 live-action musical "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" as the movie that most affected him as a child.
Campanella is hoping to help create some magic for Argentina's nascent animation biz. "Foosball's" Argentine producers have created a 10,750 square-foot studio in Buenos Aires and inked sponsorship deals with Hewlett Packard and Intel for rendering and with 3D software design company Autodesk.
The trick is to figure out a way to compete with animation from the likes of Pixar-Disney or DreamWorks, without pricing a film out of the market.
"A large part of CGI animation quality depends on budget. The more manpower, the more detail you have, but the higher the budget," says Martin Moszkowicz at Germany's Constantin, producer of the motion capture-animated "Tarzan," a big Cannes pre-sales hit. "Everybody tries to accommodate a lesser budget with a higher degree of creativity, and smaller more movable units."
For Argentina, the 2001 economic crisis, which decimated the peso exchange rate, also cut local labor costs in dollar terms. "Foosball" trimmed costs further by streamlining the production's chain of command. The concept creator of Universal's "Despicable Me," Sergio Pablos, oversaw 20 minutes animation at his SPA Studios in Spain, and advised Campanella on direction.
"We don't have to redo stuff four times for four sets of executives," Campanella says. "It's amazing how many millions that cuts."
A contained budget lessens dependence on distribution in the U.S., where so many films target families and children that, according to Moszkowicz, "You have to spend an immense amount on P&A just to make yourself heard."
"Foosball" uses only two art designers: Mariano Epelbaum, who created every character, and Nelson Luty, for sets, props and backgrounds. Adds Campanella, "We think we've reached a very realistic, subtle level of acting, with faces and gestures."
A key, according to Campanella, was finding a storytelling angle to give a tale involving table soccer figures emotional drive and depth. Eduardo Sacheri, co-scribe on "Secret," also co-wrote "Foosball."
Tim Westcott, at IHS-Screen Digest, says the fact that "Foosball" is soccer-themed is a bonus. "It's a global sport," he notes. "(And) there's a World Cup in Latin America in 2014."
The production has pulled in weighty partners. Argentina's Jempsa, Spain's Plural-Jempsa and Antena 3 Films produce. Campanella's 100 Bares, Catmandu and Convoy Films exec produce.
In addition to UIP, presales include a heavyweight deal with Russia's Carmen Films, plus deals for Turkey (Mediavision), the Middle East (Gulf Film) and Poland (Iti Cinema).
Canal Plus pre-bought Spanish pay-TV rights, Telefe free-to-air broadcast in Argentina, Antena 3 and La Sexta free-TV in Spain.
Major territories are under negotiation for theatrical, says Vicente Canales at sales agent Film Factory.
Moreover, the producers are negotiating with a "very significant U.K. Group" for an English-language version with top British and American talent, according to Jorge Estrada Mora, prexy of Plural-Jempsa, who reckons the current iteration of "Foosball" can recoup without the U.S. or Europe beyond Spain.
Will it all work?
"We'd love to build an animation industry (in Argentina)," Campanella says. "We have the talent; we now have the tools. But a lot of planets have to align."
Still, there's no harm in optimism. Sacheri is writing a treatment for "Foosball 2."
MADRID
France's Luminor, Russia's CTB and Romania's Libra Film are set to co-produce "Cannibal," a suspense thriller from Manuel Martin Cuenca ("The Weakness of the Bolshevik," "Half of Oscar") set up at Spain's Mod Producciones ("Agora," "Biutiful," "Fin") and Martin Cuenca's label, La Loma Blanca.
Luminor is the production subsidiary of Films Distribution.
Film Factory has acquired international rights to "Cannibal" and will introduce the title at next week's American Film Market.
Also written by Martin Cuenca and long-time co-scribe Alejandro Hernandez, "Cannibal" turns on Carlos, Granada's most prestigious tailor, a respected man who dedicates his life to his work and eating, especially women. One day, he meets Nina, the twin-sister of a woman he's eaten, an immigrant from Eastern Europe.
Antonio de la Torre, who played the husband of Penelope Cruz's character in "Volver" and has reunited with Pedro Almodovar for "I'm So Excited," will limn Carlos.
Principal photography is skedded for January in Granada.
A project with pedigree, "Cannibal" was first presented at the Paris Festival Different! then Paris Project. In 2012, it was selected for Rotterdam's Cinemart and then for the Cannes Festival's Cinefondation Atelier workshop.
"'Cannibal' perfectly suits our slate of quality films with great commercial potential, and it's special and different," said Film Factory CEO Vicente Canales.
"This is Hitchcock meets Bunuel," said Mod partner Simon de Santiago. "It's upscale film noir, with continuous suspense, exotic Spanish local details reminiscent of Bunuel," he added.
By JOHN HOPEWELL
SITGES -- Despite swingeing subsidy cuts this April, movies are still being put into production in Spain.
Barcelona-based Film Factory announced Thursday its acquisition of sales rights to three of Spain's biggest 2013 bets: Daniel Calparsoro's "Combustion," Daniel Sanchez Arevalo's "My Family and Other Hooligans" and Alex de la Iglesia's "Witching & Bitching." Fully financed, all three are shooting.
Rolling Sept. 22, "Combustion" stars Alex Gonzalez ("X Men: First Class"), Adriana Ugarte ("The Opposite of Love") and Alberto Ammann ("Invader") in a street-car racing action thriller with a love story.
Having made blockbuster "I Want You," Zeta Cinema and Antena 3 Films, broadcaster Antena 3's film arm, once more co-produce.
Shooting from late August, "Family" stars Sanchez Arevalo regulars Antonio de la Torre ("I'm So Excited") and Quim Gutierrez (Darkbluealmostblack") in an ensemble comedy about a family forced to marry the youngest sibling the day Spain plays in the final of the soccer World Cup in South Africa. Atipica Films ("Unit 7") Mod Prods. ("Biutiful," "Agora") and Antena 3 Films produce in collaboration with Warner Bros. Pictures Espana, which distributes in Spain.
Horror comedy "Witching" rolled Monday, with Carmen Maura, Mario Casas ("I Want You") and Hugo Silva ("The Opposite of Love"). Enrique Cerezo produces. Pubcaster RTVE has acquired free-to-air rights.
Spain's film industry fears more double-digit subsidy cuts for 2013. Yet Spanish broadcasters are still required by law to pre-buy or co-produce local films. Antena 3 Films is investing in eight 2012 shoots, CEO Mercedes Gamero said at San Sebastian.
Key players remain capitalized, tapping bank credit. However tough, international markets can still aid recoupment.
By JOHN HOPEWELL
SAN SEBASTIAN -- Alex de la Iglesia, Spain's most prominent black comedy helmer, has teamed with powerful Spanish producer Enrique Cerezo on horror laffer "Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi" (Witching and Bitching), in what looks to be one of the country's flagship productions for 2013.
Vicente Canales' sales company Film Factory Ent. has picked up "Witching's" international sales rights.
"Witching" is one of 25 pre-buys recently unveiled by TVE, the TV division of Spanish pubcaster RTVE, at a joint press conference with Spanish producer umbrella association Fapae. It was held Thursday at the San Sebastian festival.
According to De la Iglesia, "Witching" is a mix of his 1995 groundbreaking hit "The Day of the Beast" with multi-awarded 2000 comedy "Commonwealth."
"It is an outrageous comedy, in the line of 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,' but a horror comedy," De la Iglesia told Variety.
The pic turns on a robber band trying to flee to France after purloining 25,000 gold rings from a Spanish city. A curse falls on them and they fall into the clutches of the witches of the Navarrese town of Zugarramurdi.
Rolling from Oct. 1 on location in Zugarramurdi for two weeks, the production will continue for seven more weeks in Madrid.
"Witching's" ensemble cast boasts some of Spain's biggest film and TV stars, such as Mario Casas ("I Want You"), Hugo Silva ("Sex, Parties and Lies") and Carmen Maura, who earned a best actress award at San Sebastian in 2000 for her role in "Commonwealth."
Further cast members are Terele Pavez, Carolina Bang, Secun de la Rosa, Pepon Nieto and Jaime Ordonez.
"We have brought together one of the most important casts in Spain in years, along with the best Spanish film director," producer Enrique Cerezo told Variety in San Sebastian.
"This should be one of the biggest film sensations in Spain for 2013," he added.
Pic is budgeted at Euros 6 million ($7.8 million). Paybox Canal Plus has acquired pay TV rights, said production manager Carlos Bernases.
Further TVE pre-buys includes two films directed by Isabel Coixet, Aiete Mararia-produced "Nadie quiere la noche," and "Panda Eyes," a Tornasol Films co-production with Wales' Rainy Day Films.
Other TVE acquisitions include Fernando Leon de Aranoa's "El Pozo," co-produced with Mediapro, David Trueba's "Almeria, 1966" at Buenavida Prods., Emilio Aragon's road movie "A Night in Old Mexico," with Robert Duvall and Jeremy Irvine, and first-timer Beatriz Sanchis' dramatic comedy "Todos estan muertos," toplining Elena Anaya.
BY EMILIANO DE PABLOS
After becoming a local box office hit and garnering unanimous recognition from critics, UNIT 7 keeping raking in success.
Today, the Spanish Film Academy confirmed that UNIT 7 is one of the three candidates for the Oscars.
And in Berlin, the list of candidates for the European Film Awards was revealed, which also included Alberto Rodríguez’s film.
UNIT 7 is also a candidate for Mexico’s Ariel Awards.
UNIT 7 is an action thriller from talented director Alberto Rodríguez who surprised us with his films 7 VIRGINS and AFTER.
UNIT 7 is produced by Atípica Films (DarkBlueAlmostBlack, Elsa & Fred, Cousinhood) and stars Spain’s number one actor today, Mario Casas (Neon Flesh, Brain Drain), along with Inma Cuesta (Cousinhood) and Antonio de la Torre (The Last Circus, Cousinhood). The film is chock full of adrenaline and violence and evokes the style of CELL 211.
Unit 7 has a tough mission: to clean the most dangerous drug trafficking networks out of the city and bring an end to the corrosive power that has taken hold of the streets. A detail of four, led by Ángel (Mario Casas), a young officer aspiring to detective, and Rafael (Antonio de la Torre), a violent, arrogant, yet efficient cop.
But Unit 7’s modus operandi is slipping outside the bounds of law through their use of violence, coercion, lies and half-truths. For them, anything goes. As they gain ground in their mission, the two officers head in opposite directions. Ángel takes the path of ambition and police excesses, while Rafael will begin to change as a result of his feelings for beautiful, enigmatic Lucía.
Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment is materializing on "Ghost Graduation," setting up a remake of the Spanish comedy at Fox.
Overbrook, operated by Smith, James Lassiter and Ken Stovitz closed its producing deal Friday. The banner is looking to hire a writer to pen the adaptation, but there's no plan for Smith to star.
With elements of "Ghost," "The Breakfast Club" and "The Sixth Sense," story centers on a teacher with paranormal abilities who helps a group of ghosts confined to the high school where they died years earlier in a fire. The Spanish pic, "Promocion Fantasma," was directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera and released earlier this year. Gary Glushon is overseeing for Overbrook.
Shingle is also producing sci-fier "1000 A.E." for Sony with M. Night Shyamalan directing and Smith and son Jaden starring. Studio's set a June 7, 2013 release date.
By DAVE MCNARY, Variety.
Vicente Canales’ Barcelona based Film Factory has acquired international sales rights to Miguel Larraya’s Afterparty.
The TeleCinco (The Orphanage) and Telespan 2000 (Game of Werewolves) co-production is about a TV star locked in a house with three girls and haunted by a mysterious killer.
Tomás Cimadevilla for Telespan and Alvaro Agustín for TeleCinco are producing.
Afterparty is the debut feature of Miguel Larraya. The cast includes young Spanish actors Luis Fernández (Three Steps Above Heaven)) and Úrsula Corberó (Paranormal Xperience 3D). The film has also on board REC franchise cinematographer Pablo Rosso and musician Lucas Vidal (The Raven).
Vicente Canales says of the film: “Afterparty is an explosive mix of horror and action, a departure from everything we’ve previoulsy seen in the slasher genre. Buyers will be surprised”.
By JUAN SARDA, Screendaily.
PARIS -- Spain may be in crisis, but its upscale genre pic production, its prime export fare, most certainly is not. In the latest move, three top-of-the-line Spanish companies -- Telespan 2000, Telecinco Cinema and Film Factory -- are teaming on Spanish slasher "After Party."
Tomas Cimadevilla ("The Other Side of the Bed," "Soccer Days") produces. Telecinco Cinema ("The Impossible," "Pan's Labyrinth") has boarded as a co-producer. Film Factory has acquired worldwide rights outside Spain.
A smart genre shocker, "After Party" stars a young Spanish cast -- Luis Hernandez ("Three Steps Above the Sky") and Ursula Corbero ("Paranormal Experience 3D"). It turns on a teen idol TV actor who wakes up with three girls after a wild party and, trapped in a house, receives cell phone vids of the real-time deaths of other party revelers, also locked up in the house. But things may not be quite how they seem.
First-time director Miguel Larraya directs, but Spanish genre specialists occupy key crew positions: "After Party" cinematographer is Pablo Rosso, d.p. on the "REC" franchise, composer is Lucas Vidal ("Sleep Tight") and fx supervisor is Isidro Fernandez ("Extraterrestrial").
Screenplay is by Larraya and Fernando Sancristobal.
While many Spanish genre films skew older, weighing in more as psychological thrillers, "After Party" has "thriller elements but also horror targeting squarely young teen audiences," said Film Factory's Vicente Canales, who will introduce a promo to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival, which starts May 16.
By JOHN HOPEWELL, Variety.
MADRID -- Three of Spain's most international production players, Zeta Cinema, Mod Producciones and Antena 3 Films, will team to produce live-action movie "Zip & Zap and the Marble Gang," a heavyweight Spanish production for 2013.
Francisco Ramos, Fernando Bovaira and Mercedes Gamero produce, alongside Koldo Zazua of Kowalski Films.
Vicente Canales' Film Factory will sell "Zip & Zap" worldwide. It will introduce the film to buyers at Cannes' Marche du Film.
"Zip & Zap" reps the soph pic of Spanish helmer Oskar Santos, whose debut, "For the Good of Others," world preemed in 2010 at the Berlin Film Festival. The pic, which was produced by Alejandro Amenabar, was sold to 30 countries.
"Zip & Zap," which was penned by Santos, Francisco Roncal and Jorge Lara, turns on the antics of mischievous twin brothers, dispatched to a strict summer school, where they wreak havoc. It will lense this summer.
A big-screen makeover of one of Spain's most celebrated comic-book series, first published in 1946, "Zip & Zap" forms part of the policy at Zeta, a top Spanish publishing group, of exploiting the film and TV potential of its properties.
Canales described it as "a family adventure event movie with extensive vfx, channeling films like 'The Goonies' and 'Harry Potter.' "
The pic reps a relatively new play by Spanish producers for family auds, which has proved a success for counterparts elsewhere in Europe. In Germany, for example, the move into family entertainment has yielded rich results for Constantin, whose "Animals United" has grossed $80 million worldwide. France's Studiocanal scored a similar success with "Sammy's Adventures," the first fruit of its partnership with Ben Stassen's NWave, which made $75 million worldwide.
By JOHN HOPEWELL, Variety.
MADRID -- Spain's Elena Anaya ("The Skin I Live In") will play the femme lead in action-thriller "Inertia", which is directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego ("Apollo 18," "King of the Hill").
Spain's Roxbury Pictures and Jaume Collet-Serra's L.A.-based Ombra Films produce.
Oscar Isaac ("Inside Llewyn Davis") stars in "Inertia" as an immigrant who witnesses a fatal hit-and-run and pursues the mysterious car in a non-stop chase. Anaya limns his ex g.f. Their predicament rekindles the relationship, said Roxbury's Miguel Angel Faura.
From a screenplay by Lopez-Gallego and regular co-scribe Fernando Navarro, mainly Spanish-language "Inertia" shoots from late August in Barcelona, Aragon and Andalusia, Faura added.
Film Factory has already closed a brace of major territory pre-sales on the pic.
Now recognized as one of Spain's foremost actresses after her star turn in Pedro Almodovar's "The Skin I Live In", Anaya broke through to international attention with 2004's "Van Helsing". She also played in "Savage Grace" and "Cairo Time", and took notable roles in two of France's highest-profile action-thrillers of late, testosterone gangster bio "Mesrine" and full-on actioner "Point Blank".
Anaya will topline Beatriz Sanchis' "Todos estan muertos", and is also in negotiations to star in the Sigma-produced "Swung", helmed by Colin Kennedy, and to feature in Rain Li's love story "Geography of the Hapless Heart".
Anaya is represented by CAA's Hylda Queally and Katrina Bayonas at Kuranda Management.
By JOHN HOPEWELL and EMILIO MAYORGA, Variety.
"Unit 7" is that rare beast, a hard-hitting corrupt-cop thriller that's more about people than plot. Set in the late 1980s, when the city of Seville was about to become a global focus of attention, the pic offers a tough, tender take on the rise and fall of a supposedly crack squad of ne'er-do-wells, rooted in a local community that helmer Alberto Rodriguez ("Seven Virgins," "After") knows well, evokes beautifully and seemingly loves unconditionally. This highly charged, often enthralling reworking of standard motifs merits offshore interest.
The eponymous unit consists of four plainclothes cops charged with cleansing Seville's streets of drugs and prostitution before the 1992 Intl. Exhibition rolls into town. Ambitious, inexperienced Angel (Mario Casas) is married to Elena (Inma Cuesta) and dreams of being an inspector. Intensely religious Rafael (Antonio de la Torre, playing a borderline psychopath not unlike his character in Alex de la Iglesia's "The Last Circus") is given to publicly humiliating dealers by stripping them of their clothes. Mateo (Joaquin Nunez) is a tubby, motor-mouthed barfly. Less distinctive all around, Miguel (Jose Manuel Poga) supplies a normalizing counterweight to his colleagues' excesses.
The team's problems start after a raid during which Angel, wanting a piece of the action, quietly slips a package of cocaine under his belt. Before long, the boys are planting drugs on their targets and using increasingly violent methods to attain results, while the media paint them as barrio Robin Hoods. As Angel becomes increasingly explosive, the profoundly lonely Rafael unwisely brings addict Lucia (Lucia Guerrero) into his home and tries to clean her up; before long, they fall afoul of the neighborhood and the anti-corruption squad.
The pic is unfailingly gripping in its depiction of the group dynamics among these four intensely insecure men. Finally given a script that allows him to flex more than just muscles and attitude, one-time heartthrob Mario Casas ("Neon Flesh") does good work as Angel becomes increasingly unhinged, while Torre, almost without moving a facial muscle, manages to eke out a little sympathy for a character who enjoys bashing people's mouths with a hammer. Secondary roles are uniformly authentic, scripted and played with the understanding that also informed helmer Rodriquez's previous film, "Seven Virgins."
Though it meets its quota of efficient but unspectacular chase sequences and musical montages, the pic offers grace notes of tenderness and subtlety, including the true-but-surreal moments that are a hallmark of Andalucian life as well as Rodriguez's style, such as when Mateo asks for something to nibble on from a barman they're threatening, or when the boys stride, armed, through a living room where a couple of elderly ladies are having coffee.
Beyond the specifics, "Unit 7" reps a contempo update of classic Spanish picaresque, marrying it to a critique of a system based on envy and greed. Commenting on how the line between cop and criminal has become essentially meaningless, the film has much to say about the roots of the sorry economic mess in which Europe now finds itself.
The violence is pretty raw, with soundwork making a crucial contribution. Alex Catalan's lensing captures the chaotic, overheated labyrinths of the Seville barrios to which tourist videocameras rarely have access, while Julio de la Rosa's score is elegantly restrained.
By JONATHAN HOLLAND, Variety.
FILM FACTORY ENTERTAINMENT is proud to announce the pick-up of CODE 60, an OBERÓN CINEMATOGRÁFICA and TELEVISIÓ DE CATALUNYA coproduction
Film Factory will be presenting CODE 60 at MipTV.
Film Factory Entertainment together with OBERÓN CINEMATOGRÁFICA and TELEVISIÓ DE CATALUNYA, announce today that Film Factory has acquired the international sales rights on CODE 60, aka CÓDIGO 60, a film by C. Martín Ferrera (Hole).
CODE 60 is a gripping police thriller based on the real-life case of the “Old Lady Killer”, a woman whose crimes stumped the police and sent a wave of panic through Barcelona.
Producer Antonio Chavarrías won the 2009 Golden Bear for MILK OF SORROW, aka LA TETA ASUSTADA, and recently presented CHILDISH GAMES, aka DICTADO, at the 2012 Berlinale Official Competition as the only Spanish title in the festival.
CODE 60 screenplay was penned by Oriol Paulo, screenwriter of the international success JULIA’S EYES, aka LOS OJOS DE JULIA, and THE BODY, aka EL CUERPO.
Full Synopsis: Eva is a young police officer with her sights set on breaking into homicide, but is stuck in the robbery unit. One day, she is asked to join the hunt for a serial killer with a predilection for murdering old women in the panic-stricken city. The rookie agent will have to juggle capturing the murderer while toughing out her own personal battle against Chief Inspector Xavier Vidal, the man who constantly shuts the door to the homicide unit in Eva’s face.
Film Factory speaks proudly about this film, “CODE 60 is a TV Movie with film quality, not only is the story real and thrilling, but the crew is also top class. It’s a pleasure to be working with production companies as good as OBERÓN CINEMATOGRÁFICA and TELEVISIÓ DE CATALUNYA,” says Vicente Canales, from Film Factory.
Useful info:
CREW
Director: C. Martín Ferrera (Hole)
Producer: Antonio Chavarrías (Milk of Sorrow, Neon Flesh)
Screenplay: Oriol Paulo (Julia's Eyes), Lara Sendim
Story: Carmen Fernández
Associate Producer: Àngels Masclans
Producer for TVC: Oriol Sala-Patau
Producer for Costa Oeste: Carmen De Miguel
Director of Photography: José Luis Bernal
Music: Sergio Moure
Editor: Xavi Carrasco
CAST
Eva Riera Anna Allen
Xavier Vidal Nacho Fresneda
Marieta/Soledad Merce Castro
Ribalta Ernesto Collado
Milena Cristina Genebat
Berta Mari Pau Pigem
Mariano Alfonso Agra
International Distribution: FILM FACTORY ENTERTAINMENT info@filmfactory.es
About Film Factory Entertainment: FILM FACTORY ENTERTAINMENT is an independent Spanish international sales agency based in Barcelona.
FILM FACTORY’s objective is the international sale of Spanish Cinema’s most important productions, working with a selective slate, choosing films with the highest international potential and also collaborating with Europe and Latin America’s most prominent production companies.
FILM FACTORY has established itself in the market as a sales agent capable of taking on projects at an early stage and ensuring that these projects achieve pre-sales.
FILM FACTORY’s line-up is defined on the basis of two main principles:
1) Genre films: those that would be considered original films with young directors as well as groundbreaking and novel subject matters.
2) Quality films with great commercial potential: each year’s most important productions from the most important and elite directors.
MADRID -- Sales agent Film Factory Ent. has struck a flurry of deals on first-time Spanish helmer Jorge Torregrossa's thriller "Fin" (The End).
France's Seven Sept and Films Distribution have jointly acquired French distribution rights. Nettai Museum closed Japan; Quality Films took Mexico.
More than 15 territories were inked off last month's European Film Market in Berlin, where Film Factory showed buyers a three-minute promo.
Pic also sold to Focus Cultural Media in China, Paradiso (Benelux), Frenetic (Switzerland), Premier Film (CIS and the Baltics) and Ares Film (Turkey).
A mountain cabin chiller with fantasy elements, "End" confirms the international market appetite for higher-profile foreign-language genre movies from companies with bullish track records.
Produced by three of Spain's top international film production companies, Apaches Ent. ("The Impossible"), Mod Prods ("Biutiful") and Antena 3 Films ("Red Lights"), pic is penned by "Cell 211" scribe Jorge Guerricaechevarria and Sergio G. Sanchez ("The Orphanage").
Further sales include Cineplex for Colombia and Central America, Cines Unidos in Venezuela and Delta Films in Peru.
Film Factory has also licensed Latin American pay TV rights to Leda Films and is in advanced negotiations for the U.K. and Germany, according to Film Factory founder Vicente Canales.
Sony Pictures will release "End" in Spanish theaters on Aug. 31. Maribel Verdu ("Pan's Labyrinth"), Daniel Grao ("Julia's Eyes") and Clara Lago ("Primos") star.
By EMILIANO DE PABLOS, Variety.
Vicente Canales’ Film Factory confirmed a slew of deals at EFM for Jorge Torregrossa’s Spanish thriller The End (Fin).
The film has presold to France (Seven Sept), China (Focus Cultural Media), Japan (Nettai Museum) and Mexico (Quality Films) among many others in Latin America.
Other companies and territories included in this raft of international presales are Benelux (Paradiso), Switzerland (Frenetic), CIS and Baltics (Premier Films), Turkey (Ares Film), Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador (Delta Films), Colombia and Central America (Cineplex), Venezuela (Cines Unidos) and Latin American pay TV (Leda Films).
Based on a very popular Spanish novel, The End was adapted by Sergio G. Sánchez (The Impossible, The Orphanage) and Jorge Guerricoechevarría (Cell 211) and has a strong cast led by Maribel Verdú and top young Spanish upcoming actors like Blanca Romero, Claro Lago and international top model Andrés Velencoso.
The story follows the unfortunate gathering of a group of old friends in a mountain cabin. The tension among them is evident for an obscure episode of the past, but it will get creepier as soon as they kept isolated in the middle of the forest with no communication to the outside world. The dark past will come to haunt them.
The film, currently in post-production, was produced by Mod Productions (Biutiful, Agora), Apaches Entertainment (The Impossible) and Antena 3 Films (Red Lights).
MADRID -- Sony Pictures Releasing has snagged Spanish theatrical and home entertainment rights to adventure-movie "The Pelayos" (Winning Streak), starring Daniel Bruhl.
The Sony pickup will help consolidate "Pelayos'" status as one of Spain's higher-profile and audience-friendly films of the year, both at home and abroad.
Pic is based on the true story of the Pelayos, a Spanish family that discovered a way to legally win at roulette, making hundreds of millions of dollars at casinos around the world.
Catalan helmer Eduard Cortes ("Nobody's Life") directed and co-penned the script alongside Piti Espanol.
The choral feature also stars Lluis Homar ("Broken Embraces"), Blanca Suarez ("The Skin I Live In"), Eduard Fernandez ("Biutiful"), Miguel Angel Silvestre ("Verbo") and Vicente Romero ("Cell 211").
Produced by Loris Omedes at Barcelona-based Bausan Films, and Alea Docs & Films' co-founder Daniel Hernandez, "Pelayos" is backed by Spanish pubcaster RTVE and Catalonia's TV3. Canal Plus has taken pay TV rights.
Sold internationally by Film Factory Ent., one of Spain's most active international film sellers, it's already been acquired by Wild Bunch Germany for German-speaking territories.
"The Pelayos" is not a pureplay youth movie, but Spanish cinema attendance is skewing notably older as the country suffers a youth unemployment rate of around 48%.
Film, which bows in Spain April 27 on around 300 prints, world preems April 21 opening the 15th Malaga Spanish Film Festival.
By EMILIANO DE PABLOS, Variety.
Jaume Collet-Serra will produce action thriller "Inertia", starring Oscar Isaac ("Inside Llewyn Davis"), and directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego ("Apollo 18," "El rey de la montana").
Collet-Serra is producing via his L.A.-based production company Ombra Films, which will team with Miguel Angel Faura's Roxbury Pictures in Barcelona.
Spanish sales agent Film Factory Entertainment, an upscale genre specialist, has been handling international sales at Berlin's European Film Market.
"Inertia" has closed key pre-sales in France (Wildside Films), Russia (Carmen Films), Australia (Vendetta), India (Pictureworks), China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (Pandasia) and the Middle East (Gulf Films), Film Factory's Vicente Canales said at Berlin.
Isaac is currently in production on the Coen brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis." In the Spanish-language "Inertia", Isaac will limn an immigrant who witnesses a fatal hit-and-run and pursues the mysterious car in a nonstop chase. The remainder of the cast will be Spanish, said Faura.
Lopez-Gallego and his regular scribe Fernando Navarro penned the screenplay.
Faura, Collet-Serra and Juan Sola, his producing partner at Ombra, produce.
"I've been a fan of and wanting to work with Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego since 'El rey de la Montana,' " Collet-Serra said. "I'm thrilled that the first film Ombra is doing with Gonzalo will star Oscar Isaac, who I consider to be one of the pre-eminent young actors working today."
L.A.-based Ombra Films was launched in 2010 to produce low-budget, horror, thriller and fantasy films, often with U.S. stars, but made by Spanish directorial and technical talent.
"Inertia" is currently in pre-production, starting principal photography this summer.
"This is a step up in Roxbury's international drive, a film with U.S. co-production and international pre-sales, lessening our dependence on the market in Spain and Spanish financing," said Faura.
Oscar Isaac is managed by Jason Spire at Inspire Entertainment and represented by Kevin Volchok at UTA. Ombra Films is repped by Scott Greenberg at CAA.
By JOHN HOPEWELL and EMILIO MAYORGA, Variety.
Sony Pictures Releasing Espana has acquired Spanish theatrical and DVD/VOD rights to "Fin" (The End).
A mountain log cabin chiller with supernatural elements, "End" is penned by "Cell 211" scribe Jorge Guerricaechevarria and Sergio G. Sanchez ("The Orphanage").
Now in post-production, it is also a high-profile 2012 example of a Spanish film which - given the weakness of Spain's DVD and pay TV markets - is designed to move into profit principally off theatrical and international. With its E5 million ($6.6 million) budget, film sports elevated production values from first-time helmer Jorge Torregrossa.
"End" is produced by three of Spain's top international outfits: Apaches Entertainment ("The Impossible," "Intruders"), Mod Producciones ("Agora," "Biutiful") and Antena 3 Films ("You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," "Red Lights"), the film division of broadcast network Antena 3.
Vicente Canales' Film Factory Entertainment was tapped by the producers before Toronto 2011 to bring it onto the international market.
The producers are now tying down distribution in Spain with a studio.
Maribel Verdu ("Pan's Labyrinth"), Daniel Grao ("Julia's Eyes") and Clara Lago ("Primos") star.
Sony will release "End" in late summer, prime box office real estate in Spain.
By JOHN HOPEWELL and EMILIANO DE PABLOS, Variety.
Film Factory Entertainment announced today that has acquired the international sales rights on UNIT 7 aka GRUPO 7, an action thriller from talented director Alberto Rodríguez who surprised us with his films 7 Virgins and After.
UNIT 7 is produced by Atípica Films (DarkBlueAlmostBlack, Elsa & Fred, Cousinhood) and stars Spain’s number one actor today, Mario Casas (Neon Flesh, Brain Drain), along with Inma Cuesta (Cousinhood) and Antonio de la Torre (The Last Circus, Cousinhood).
The film is chock full of adrenaline and violence and evokes the style of CELL 211.
UNIT 7 is currently in post-production, and Film Factory will be in attendance at EFM 2012 to present the first teaser promo to buyers.
SYNOPSIS
Unit 7 has a tough mission: to clean the most dangerous drug trafficking networks out of the city and bring an end to the corrosive power that has taken hold of the streets. A detail of four, led by Ángel (Mario Casas), a young officer aspiring to detective, and Rafael (Antonio de la Torre), a violent, arrogant, yet efficient cop.
But Unit 7’s modus operandi is slipping outside the bounds of law through their use of violence, coercion, lies and half-truths. For them, anything goes. As they gain ground in their mission, the two officers head in opposite directions. Ángel takes the path of ambition and police excesses, while Rafael will begin to change as a result of his feelings for beautiful, enigmatic Lucía.
ABOUT FILM FACTORY ENTERTAINMENT
FILM FACTORY ENTERTAINMENT is an independent Spanish international sales agency based in Barcelona.
FILM FACTORY’s objective is the international sale of Spanish Cinema’s most important productions, working with a selective slate, choosing films with the highest international potential and also collaborating with Europe and Latin America’s most prominent production companies.
FILM FACTORY wants to establish itself in the market as a sales agent capable of taking on projects at an early stage and ensuring that these projects achieve pre-sales.
FILM FACTORY’s line-up is defined on the basis of two main principles:
1) Genre films: those that would be considered original films with young directors as well as groundbreaking and novel subject matters.
2) Quality films with great commercial potential: each year’s most important productions from the most important and elite directors.
ABOUT ATÍPICA FILMS:
Atípica Films is an award-winning, full-service, independent Spanish film production company founded by José Antonio Félez and based in Madrid.
With over 20 years experience in the audiovisual industry, Félez has produced several critically acclaimed box office hits (Elsa & Fred, DarkBlueAlmostBlack), the last one being Cousinhood. He has worked with top directors, writers and actors. Many of them—such as Juan José Ballesta, Daniel Sánchez Arévalo and Alberto Rodríguez—began their career working with him.
USEFUL INFORMATION
CAST
Ángel Mario Casas (Neon Flesh, 3 Meters Above the Sky)
Rafael Antonio de la Torre (Cousinhood, Neon Flesh)
Elena Inma Cuesta (Cousinhood, The Sleeping Voice)
Lucía Lucía Guerrero
CREW
Director: Alberto Rodríguez (7 Virgins, After)
Producers: José Antonio Félez (Cousinhood, DarkBlueAlmostBlack), Gervasio Iglesias (Juan of the Dead)
Screenwriter: Rafael Cobos (7 Virgins)
Director of Photography: Álex Catalán (Even the Rain, The Sleeping Voice)
Editor: José M.G. Moyano (7 Virgins)
International Distribution:
FILM FACTORY ENTERTAINMENT info@filmfactory.es
Grafting "The Sixth Sense" onto "The Breakfast Club" and making it work sounds like a tough call, but the makers of "Ghost Graduation" have pulled it off. This sophomore effort from Javier Ruiz Caldera, the helmer of the uneven-at-best parody "Spanish Movie," creates a loopy, frenetic world it entirely believes in. The result is a fresh, slick slab of entertainment whose roster of tube stars has ensured solid domestic B.O., but there's enough universal fun here to suggest "Ghost" could live on in remake form.
Schoolteacher Modesto (Raul Arevalo) has a special skill that has effectively ruined his life: He can see and communicate with ghosts. But his abilities are finally put to good use when he's hired to investigate wacky goings-on at a high school haunted by a gang of teens who died in a fire in 1986, just before they were about to graduate.
Much "Back to the Future"-style time-travel comedy ensues, though it does seem anachronistic to name one of the dead teens, disco animal Pinfloy (Javier Bodalo), after a 1970s prog-rock band. ("Michael Jackson's dead," Modesto informs them. "That's a shame," Pinfloy replies. "I spent a night at his ranch.")
By talking to the dead father (Luis Varela) of his shrink (popular comic Joaquin Reyes), Modesto learns the gang is in a kind of limbo. Until they can pass their final course, they're not free to leave the school. After some resistance from tough guy Dani (Alex Maruny), the spectral students decide to let Modesto teach them.
Things flow smoothly from setpiece to setpiece, with regular chuckles along the way. Pic is less successful recycling standard material from '80s high-school comedies, but the scenes in which the dead meet the living generate much sly verbal and visual humor. Cristobal Garrido and Adolfo Valor's intelligent script takes its own outlandish propositions very seriously, so that even a tremulous love story between Goth girl Elsa (Aura Garrido) and dead hunk Jorge (Jaime Olias) seems credible, introducing an unexpected note of tenderness.
Perfs are fine, with Arevalo confirming himself as a standout Spanish comic thesp. As the pompous, fussy head of the school's PTA, Carlos Areces is likewise enormously entertaining. Silvia Abril's turn as a secretary reps a weak point, however, appealing only to Spanish auds' undying love of slapstick.
Score is undistinguished, but the tongue-in-cheek use of pop songs is spot-on, with Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and plenty of '80s Spanish power pop calculated to provoke much teen-parent bonding.
MADRID -- Barcelona's Escandalo Films, one of Spain's key producers of genre pics, the country's biggest movie export commodity, has greenlit its latest fantasy film, the chiller "Colmillos" (Fangs).
Film Factory Ent. has acquired international rights outside Spain.
Alberto de Toro, who cut his teeth editing Mexican-Spanish Aztec curse chiller "KM 31" and Spain's "Ghost Graduation," will make his directorial debut on "Fangs," working from a screenplay with novelist Salvador Macip.
Adapting the award-winning young-adult bestseller of the same title, written by Macip and Sebastian Roig, "Fangs" turns on a troubled teen who is kidnapped, shuttled to a house in the mountains, and forced to work as a slave. The only escape is through a dark forest where mysterious, savage creatures lurk.
"Fangs" rolls September.
A wide-audience film in the line of "The Descent," according to Film Factory founder Vicente Canales, "Fangs" producer Escandalo has emerged as one of Spain's most exciting production companies, working with alums from Barcelona's Escac film school, such as Juan Antonio Bayona, who has the Summit-sold "The Impossible" in post, Alex Pastor, who helmed Paramount Vantage's "Carriers," and "Pan's Labyrinth" editor Bernat Vilaplana.
"Fangs" cinematographer is Arnau Valls, who lensed Escandalo's Daniel Bruhl starrer "Eva"; Alex Villagrasa ("Buried," the "REC" franchise) handles special effects.
"Fangs" consolidates a Film Factory-Escandalo production-sales axis. Film Factory is repping Escandalo's buzzed-up, "Donnie Darko"-ish "Animals," with Martin Freeman, and will screen its multi- episode romancer "Puzzled Love," the first feature of 13 final-year Escac students.
Editor Alberto de Toro to make his directorial debut.
Barcelona-based Film Factory has acquired the international sales rights for Fangs (Colmillos), the new movie by Escandalo Films.
Vicente Canales’ Film Factory will show a teaser trailer at the forthcoming Berlin EFM.
Fangs is currently in preproduction to start shooting in March. Alberto del Toro, who has worked as an editor on many Spanish productions such as Ghost Graduation and Spanish Movie, will make his directorial debut. The script is based in the young adult comic book of the same title by Salvador Macip and Albert Roig.
The film tells the story of a wealthy, rebellious teenager, Vicent, who is sent to a summer camp for boys with behaviour problems. Before he arrives, he is kidnapped and sent to a house in the mountains were he is treated like a slave. If he wants to escape, he will have to face the wolves and other creatures of the forest.
Escandalo recently made robotic sci fi Eva, which premiered in Venice. It is the production company of Barcelona-based film school ESCAC and has been also the producer of arthouse hit Three Days With The Family.
The Canal+ Spanish series CREMATORIUM has received recognition once again this evening in the “Best Spanish Series” category of the 58th edition of Barcelona Radio’s ONDAS AWARDS.
The Ondas have been ongoing since 1954, awarding the best in creation and content in the television sphere, as well as honoring brilliant careers in the television, music and radio sectors. CREMATORIUM achieves this important award after “The Best of the Year” prize received at FesTVal in Vitoria, Spain, for a series that portrays a spitting image of Spanish corruption.
Based on the novel by Rafael Chirbes (National Critics Award 2008, Spain), CREMATORIUM reflects, without making any concessions, what has been happening in a country like Spain over the last few years.
CREMATORIUM is the story of the Bertomeus, a family that has managed to amass a fortune over several generations. Ruben Bertomeu left agriculture behind in order to create a business network that would turn him into the most wealthy and powerful man in Misent. But it is within his family surroundings that Ruben Bertomeu runs into opposition to his view of progress.
Produced by Mod Producciones (Agora, Biutiful) for CANAL+, CREMATORIUM is a portrait of a Spain in which unrestrained voracity and differing views on progress burn up everything in their path.
Starring José Sancho (Live Flesh) along with Alicia Borrachero (The Cronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Love in the Time of Cholera), Juana Acosta (Carlos) and Vlad Ivanov (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 days, The Concert), the series is directed by Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo (The Night of the Sunflowers).
REVIEWS about CREMATORIUM:
“CREMATORIUM is a bold, modern TV series of great quality.” El Mundo
“CREMATORIUM looks like HBO, but it is a Canal + production. The series, which tells the story of corruption in Spain, is one of this year’s best bets. Don’t miss it!” Cinemania (Mariló García)
“The Sopranos and The Wire are its points of reference, but CREMATORIUM has been able to establish itself in its own right, standing out for the personality of its director...” Cahiers du cinema (Beatriz Martínez)
More information: t.oliete@filmfactory.es
Spanish sales house Film Factory Entertainment has nabbed worldwide sales rights to Jorge Torregrossa's debut "Fin" (The End).
"End" will be introduced to buyers at Toronto.
Three of Spain's foremost production players team on "End": Apaches Entertainment ("The Impossible"), Mod Producciones ("Agora") and Spanish commercial broadcaster Antena 3's film division Antena 3 Films ("You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger").
"End" turns on a reunion of old friends, now in their 30s or 40s, who spend the weekend in a mountain log cabin. A strange, sudden incident leaves them with no means of communication to the outside world. Seeking help, the group disintegrates, just as a new natural world is revealed to their astonished eyes.
Cast is led by Maribel Verdu.
Two of Spain's most sought-after scriptwriters have penned "End": Jorge Guerricaechevarria ("Cell 211") and Sergio G. Sanchez ("The Orphanage"). The script adapts David Monteagudo's same titled best-selling novel.
Pic is in production, shooting in the Madrid and Valencia regions.
" 'End' is a thriller with decisive fantasy elements. People need original plot twists in genre movies, as in 'End,' which is undoubtedly one of the great Spanish productions of the year," Film Factory CEO Vicente Canales told Variety.
Film Factory's Toronto slate for Toronto includes: Gonzalo Lopez Gallego's car-chase action movie "Inertia"; "Puzzled Love," which has 13 directors; Juan Jose Campanella toon pic "Foosball"; and Eduardo Cortes' "Winning Streak."
By Emilio Mayorga.
Spanish outfit Film Factory Entertainment has taken worldwide sales rights to Jorge Torregrossa’s hotly anticipated thriller The End (Fin), starring Maribel Verdu.
The film, which will be presented to buyers at Toronto, is based on the critically acclaimed novel Fin by David Monteagudo about a group of old friends who meet up after years of not seeing each other to stay in a mountain refuge, but an incident leaves them stranded with no communication to the outside world. As they attempt to find help, tensions in the group reach boiling point and a new order is formed.
Long-time Alejandro Amenabar collaborator Fernando Bovaira is producing the project through his outfit Mod Producciones (Biutiful, Agora), alongside hot producer Enrique Lopez-Lavigne for Apaches Entertainment (Intruders, The Impossible), Mercedes Gamero for Antena 3 Films (You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, Red Lights), and Misent Producciones.
Multi-award winning shorts director Jorge Torregrossa is helming the feature project, and scriptwriting duties are split between Jorge Guerricaechevarri?a (Cell 211) and Sergio G Sanchez (The Orphanage, The Impossible).
“Fin is undoubtedly one of the great productions in Spanish film for 2012. I know it will surprise buyers and become one of those great Spanish genre movies that have left their mark in the international market. It’s a luxury and a privilege to be able to work with producers of such great international prestige and vision,” says Vicente Canales, head of Film Factory Entertainment.
Shooting of The End will take place this month and next in Madrid and Valencia with the lead cast consisting of Maribel Verdu (Pan’s Labyrinth), Clara Lago (Primos, For The Good Of Others), Blanca Romero (After), Daniel Grao (Julia’s Eyes), Carmen Ruiz (Death To Ugly People) and Miquel Fernandez.
Torregrossa has won more than 100 international awards for his short films, including Verano O Los Defectos De Andres (2006), Manchas (2005), Detesto El Sentimentalismo Barato (2003) and Desire (2000).
By Chris Evans.
Vicente Canales' Film Factory Entertainment has picked up international rights to "Puzzled Love", a 13-part love story produced by Escandalo Films.
Currently in post, "Love" will world preem in San Sebastian Film Festival's main Zabaltegi-Specials sidebar, which kicks off Sept. 16.
Film Factory will show "Love" footage to buyers at the Toronto Film Festival, which starts Sept. 8.
"Toronto is the optimum place to find distribbers seeking a fresh and different product," Canales said.
Helmed by final-year students at Barcelona's Escac film school, Spain's premier new-talent hub, "Love" is based on an original idea by Lluis Segura, who coordinated the project.
"Love" centers on two students who meet in Barcelona thanks to a European scholarship and fall in love. Their passion, however, comes with an expiration date -- the end of their grants.
The pic got two thumbs up from Spanish helmer Juan Antonio Bayona ("The Orphanage," "The Impossible"), who wrote on Twitter: "'Love' is one of the best Spanish movies I've seen in a very long time."
Film Factory's fall slate also includes Daniel Sanchez Arevalo's "Cousinhood" and Marcal Fores' "Animals".
(Emiliano de Pablos in Madrid contributed to this article.)
Spanish pic “Cousinhood (Primos)” from Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, produced by Atípica Films and MOD Producciones, takes place in its first festival Taormina Film Fest 2011. Named as the Sicilian town where it is held, this festival will celebrate from 11th to 18th June. “Cousinhood (Primos)” will screen on Tuesday 14 evening at marvellous Greek theatre Teatro Antico in Taormina and Inma Cuesta will present.
Daniel Sánchez Arévalo’s film released as the best opening of the year, and nearly one million people have seen it on the big screen by now, which makes “Cousinhood” one of the films of the year. Both director and two main actors Quim Gutiérrez and Raúl Arévalo team again after acclaimed DarkBlueAlmostBlack (AzulOscuroCasiNegro) for this third Arévalo’s feature.
Film Factory Entertainment has international sales rights to “Cousinhood (Primos)”, which was presented last Berlin European Film Market and Cannes Marché du Film.
By JOHN HOPEWELL, CHARLES NEWBERY
EXCLUSIVE-- Years in the making, Juan Jose Campanella's animated movie "Foosball 3D," his follow-up to "The Secret of Their Eyes," is now being brought onto the market at Cannes, with Spain's Film Factory tying down international rights.
Budgeted around $14 million-$15 million, "Foosball" is the biggest film currently coming out of Latin America.
But it's far more than that: It combines the talents of Campanella, who not only directs but writes, and "Despicable Me" originator Sergio Pablo, who provides 20-25 minutes of animation via his Spanish studios.
Also, it's backed by two of Spain's biggest film-TV heavyweights -- pic production powerhouse Antena 3 Films, run by Mikel Lejarza and Mercedes Gamero, and conglom Prisa, via Plural Jempsa, headed by Jorge Estrada Mora.
Put together, the talent and backing makes "Foosball" a new flagship for a Spanish world animation movie industry.
Set against a soccer background, the most international of sports, and being an animated feature, the least local of film types, "Foosball" clearly targets an international audience. It follows a boy who, with the help of table football figures that come to life, takes on a star soccer pro to save his hometown.
"Foosball," said Estrada, "is a coming of age film with touches of 'The Dirty Dozen.'" It is produced by Argentina's Jempsa, Spain's Plural-Jempsa, a Prisa company, and Antena 3 Films. Exec producers are Campanella's Buenos Aires-based 100 Bares, Gaston Gorali's Catmandu and Gustavo Ferrada in Spain.
Added Estrada, "We're attempting to create an animation industry in Latin America, a 3D animation base that could be the seed of something."
By EMILIANO DE PABLOS
MADRID -- Spanish sales agency Film Factory Ent. has picked up international distribution rights to Miguel Angel Toledo's psychological thriller "La Senda" (The Path), co-penned by writer-director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo ("28 Weeks Later," "Intruders," "The Crow" remake).
Toledo's directorial film debut, "Path" turns on a couple, whose marriage is on the rocks, who decide to spend Christmas night with their 7-year-old son in an isolated, snow-bound cabin in the mountains.
Co-written by Toledo and Fresnadillo, script has "a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere," said Film Factory founder Vicente Canales.
"Path" is co-produced by Valencia-based shingle The Green Star Films, Canary Island's Totem Producciones and Spanish powerhouse Tornasol Films. Marife de Rueda and Victoria Alberca exec produce.
Now in post, pic shot for six weeks in Spain's Teruel province and Alicante's Ciudad de la Luz Studios. Budget was Euro2.5 million ($3.6 million).
Pic's cast include Spanish thesps Gustavo Salmeron ("Body Confusion") and Irene Visedo ("The Devil's Backbone").
Toledo and Fresnadillo have enjoyed a long partnership. Toledo produced the live-action short "Linked," for which Fresnadillo received an Oscar nom in 1997.
Producers plan "Path's" world premiere for October's Sitges film festival, said Green Star's Pepon Sigler.
Film Factory will be showing a promo to buyers at Cannes market.
By Geoffrey Macnab
Former Filmax exec Vicente Canales, in Berlin with his new sales outfit The Film Factory, will handle international sales on Winning Streak (The Pelayos), the new Eduard Cortés film.
Alea Doc & Film and Bausan Films will produce.
Daniel Brühl and Lluís Homar star in the story of a family with few prospects who come up with a get-rich-quick scheme.
Canales set up Film Factory at the end of last year, and the outfit’s slate also includes Saint (Sint) and Cousinhood.
By EMILIO MAYORGA
BARCELONA -- Mod Producciones, the producer of Alejandro Amenabar's "Agora" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Biutiful," is teaming with Spain's Ikiru Films, Ciskul and Think Studio to produce Javier Ruiz Caldera' Ghost graduation
A high-school phantom comedy, "Ghost's" international rights have been acquired by Vicente Canales' Film Factory Ent.
Ikiru produced "Lope" and co-produced "Pope Joan."
"Ghost" turns on Modesto, a mediocre teacher with a paranormal gift, who is given the responsibility of helping five singular students -- all ghosts -- pass their high-school exams and finally leave school.
Script is co-penned by Cristobal Garrido and Adolfo Valor, both successful Spanish TV writers.
"Ghost" will be Ruiz Caldera's sophomore feature. His debut, "Spanish Movie," grossed a strong Euros 6.6 million ($9.6 million) in Spain from a late 2009 bow, and was sold by Canales to major territories such as Germany and Japan.
"'Ghost' has an original concept and a seductive fantasy element that will allow it to travel internationally," Canales told Daily Variety.
"It's a young, spirited fresh comedy that isn't just a spoof but has singular twists," says Edmon Roch at Ikiru Films.
Cast includes Raul Arevalo, Alexandra Jimenez and Ana Fernandez. "Ghost" lenses from around June, and is skedded to bow year-end.
Dutch bad-Santa horror pic Saint (Sint) by Dick Maas, co-produced by Tom de Mol Productions and Parachute Pictures, took part in newyorker Tribeca Film Festival, where IFC Midnight snagged U.S. rights.
Saint (Sint) was a hit in the Netherlands becoming the number one box-office last Christmas. Director Dick Maas and producer Tom de Mol teamed again after succesful Killerbabes of 2007.
Film Factory Entertaintment has international sales rights to Saint (Sint), which was presented last Berlin European Film Market and Cannes Marché du Film.
By EMILIANO DE PABLOS, JOHN HOPEWELL
MADRID -- Spanish sales company Film Factory Ent. has entered the TV distribution arena, picking up international rights to Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo's TV skein "Crematorium," a withering social portrait of modern Spain.
For Spain, "Crematorium" is a pioneering pay TV drama, produced by paybox Canal Plus alongside Madrid-based outfit Mod Producciones' Fernando Bovaira, producer of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Biutiful" and Alejandro Amenabar's "Agora."
Skein, which marks an early attempt by Canal Plus Spain to follow in HBO's footsteps, plowing into quality series production, tells the story of the Bertomeus, a former farming family that amasses a fortune in Spain, thanks to corruption.
Helmed by Sanchez-Cabezudo, who made a standout feature film debut in 2006 with "The Night of the Sun-Flowers," cast includes Spanish thesps Pepe Sancho ("Live Flesh") and Alicia Borrachero ("The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"), plus Romania's Vlad Ivanov ("4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days").
Aired from March 7 in Spain, "Crematorium" made a successful debut, becoming Canal Plus Spain's second best-bowing fiction series after Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg-produced World War II miniseries "The Pacific."
"This is a top-level TV series. We were captivated by the impressive cinematographic look," said Vicente Canales, Film Factory Ent. managing director.
In a further move into TV content market, Film Factory has inked international distribution pay and free-to-air TV rights to Spanish pop singer Alejandro Sanz's "Paradise Express" concert, a 3D special produced by Puerto Rico's Tommy Torres.
By Chris Evans
Former Filmax executive Vicente Canales has confirmed Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s hotly anticipated comedy Cousinhood (Primos) as his first pick up under his new sales label Film Factory Entertainment.
Barcelona-based Film Factory will handle international sales on the Spanish-language project, which has already been picked up by Warner Bros for Spain who will release the film on Feb 4 on 250 prints.
Cousinhood — Arevalo’s third feature following the success of DarkBlueAlmost Black and Gordos — tells the story of a man who is dumped a few days before his wedding and so decides to track down his childhood sweetheart instead.
Production duties are shared between Jose Antonio Felez’ Atipica Films, who produced both DarkBlueAlmostBlack and Gordos, and Mod Producciones, the team behind Agora and Biutiful.
The cast is led by top Spanish actors Raul Arevalo, Antonio De La Torre and Quim Gutierrez who all worked together on Arevalo’s previous two films, alongside new talent Adrian Lastra.
“Cousinhood is one of the comedies of the year in Spain and it perfectly suits the quality director-driven slate we want to bring to the marketplace. Daniel Sanchez Arevalo is a brilliant director and Cousinhood is an amazing, hilarious film. It is a great pleasure to start working with top level production companies such as Mod and Atipica. I am very happy they have trusted the Film Factory with the project,” says Canales.
Simon De Santiago at Mod Producciones who negotiated the deal for Mod and Atipica, added: “It is a real pleasure for Atipica and Mod to follow Vicente on this new exciting adventure and we are proud he chose Cousinhood as his first pick up for Film Factory Entertainment. We couldn’t be in better hands.”
Canales will present Cousinhood for the first time to buyers at the EFM, and is expected to announce further pick-ups in the coming days.