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After a puzzlingly muted presence at this year’s Berlinale, Spanish cinema is roaring back with two high-profile selections – Carla Simón’s “Romería” and Oliver Laxe’s “Sirat” – in the main competition at Cannes. While it’s too soon to call Berlin’s thin Spanish lineup an anomaly, Spain’s strong showing at Cannes suggests a renewed momentum that Spanish sales agents are eager to capitalize on.

At February’s European Film Market, Spanish companies reported an upbeat atmosphere despite the absence of major competition titles. The underlying optimism stemmed from a combination of factors: a new generation of directors, international-ready genre films, a growing animation sector and, critically, a higher technical and storytelling standard across the board.

“We’ve definitely raised the bar,” says Iván Díaz, head of international sales at Filmax. “The quality in Spanish productions is better now, and you can feel that in every genre: animation,...

Spain’s Latido Films has acquired three titles ahead of their world premieres at the Málaga Film Festival, including competition title Away.

Local star Mario Casas headlines as a man who travels to the Dutch city of Utrecht with his family for a football match. After experiencing a panic attack, he decides to remain in the city, severing all ties with his past and with no money, friends, home or knowledge of the language.

It is directed by first-time feature filmmaker Gerard Oms and produced by Barcelona’s Zabriskie Films has produced the film with Revolver Amsterdam.

“This semi-autobiographical film...

Building on bullish business between Berlin’s European Film Market and the eve of this week’s Málaga Festival Spanish Screenings, Madrid-based Latido Films has unveiled a slew of several dozen deals, led by sales in major European territories of Eva Libertad’s Berlin smash “Deaf” (“Sorda”) and a U.S. pick-up on Bartosz M. Kowalski’s horror film “Night Silence.”

“Deaf’s” release in France will be handled by Paris-based Condor Distribution. Piffl Medien bought the film’s rights for Germany & Austria, while Lucky Red inked Italian rights. The U.K. & Ireland rights were acquired by Curzon, and CineArt took Benelux.

Further “Deaf” buyers include Agora in Switzerland, Outsider in Portugal, Feelgood Entertainment in Greece, Lev Cinemas in Israel and the Association of Czech Film Clubs for Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The film has also been acquired in China by Wise Media, Australia (Madman), Japan (New Select) and Indonesia...

Filmed through the prism of grief, documentary ‘Almudena’ is director Azucena Rodrigues’ ode to one of Spain’s renowned writers who was also a dear friend. The late Almudena Grandes was “the voice of her generation, exploring not only contemporary issues but dwelling as well in the memory of the Spanish Civil War,” said Latido’s Antonio Saura, who added: “This will be a must-see documentary for everyone interested in Spanish and world literature, and for Latido, an honor to bring to the world.”

Premiering March 15 in a special screening at the Malaga Film Festival, “Almudena” began as a project about Sara Gómez, a character from Grandes’ novel ‘Los Aires Dificiles,’ according to Rodrigues, whose credits include “Women in Prison,” starring Penelope Cruz. This led to her meeting with Grandes and the start of a lifelong friendship. In 1995, Rodrigues made a film adaptation of Grandes’ novel ‘Atlas of Human Geography...

Off the back of a busy European Film Market, leading Spanish sales agent Latido Films has picked up Gracia Querejeta’s tenth feature, “The Good Luck,” screening in competition at this year’s Malaga Film Festival.

“The Good Luck,” based on leading Spanish novelist Rosa Montero’s title of the same name, turns on Pablo, who decides to get off the train at a seedy town and buy an old, run-down apartment across the tracks to begin a new life as if he weren’t the renowned architect he actually is. He might be running away from someone, or something, or even from himself. Everything in town seems to be stagnating except for Raluca, an optimistic woman open to any surprises that might change her life for the better. She’s decided to trust her luck, even if life hasn’t always been kind to her.

Latido managing director Antonio Saura describes the film as,...

Spanish cinema has seen significant changes since the pandemic, as observed by its sales agents. Despite recent successes, such as top prizes at the Berlinale in 2022 (“Alcarràs”) and 2023, the limited selection of Spanish films at this year’s event has raised questions about the long-term forecast for the Spanish industry.

Commercially, Spanish films sell well abroad, and animation and genre titles are hot commodities. A key factor in Spain’s industry growth has been an influx of productions backed by monied TV companies and local streamers. That can be a double-edged sword.

“The arrival of streamers has had an impact on the consumption habits of viewers, both in cinema and on TV, and also on the production of content,” says Javier Esteban at The Mediapro Studio.

MoreThan Films’ Queralt Pons suggests those changing habits have “shifted focus toward series rather than feature films and have also led to a homogenization of the audiovisual language.

Montevideo, Uruguay — “As a meeting place, Ventana Sur was fantastic, the sales agent presence was good, focused on companies which really do buy, and the organization was impecable, run by highly dedicated and nice people,” said Antonio Saura, at Madrid-based sales agency Latido Films.

Most other attendees would buy into that.

Transferred for the first time since its launch in 2009 from its traditional Buenos Aires base to the heart of Uruguay’s Montevideo, this week’s Ventana Sur proved an upbeat affair, highlighting a clutch of titles likely to make A-List festival selection, plus some of the Latin America’s movers and shakers in the region and beyond, and the latest trends in an ever evolving regional industry.

Following, some first takeaways from Ventana Sur, Latin America’s weightiest film-tv market, co-hosted by the Cannes Festival’s Marché du Film, Uruguay’s Acau agency and Argentina’s Incaa.

Ventana Sur...

One of the most active of sales agents at this week’s Ventana Sur, Madrid-based Latido Films has closed international rights on adventure-comedy “Small Town” (“Pueblo Chico”) a parable of greed and instance of the building scale and ambition of Latin American animation co-production whether regional or reaching out to Spain.

The subject of a Ventana Sur panel on Wednesday, “Small Town,” long in the works, marks the comeback of Uruguay’s Walter Tournier (“Selkirk”), one of the most veteran of Latin American animation directors whose career stretches back to 1972’s cut-out animated short “In the Forest There Is Much to Do” and takes in Uruguay’s first animated feature, “Selkirk.”

In “Small Town,” a winner at Ventana Sur’s 2017’s Animation! which segued to a 2018 Animation! Focus at Annecy’s Mifa’s market, Tournier co-directs with another acknowledged Latin American master of stop-motion animation, Brazil’s Quirino winner Cesar Cabral.

Spain’s Latido Films, has pounced on remake rights to Chilean phenomenon “Dad to the Rescue” (“Papa al Rescate”), the biggest box office draw in Chile in the past five years.

Lead produced by Sebastian Freund’s Rizoma Films, the family comedy is directed by Marcos Carnevale whose other films he has either directed or written, “Elsa and Fred” and “Corazon de Leon respectively,” have been widely adapted internationally.

“As far as Latido is concerned, we are proud to get involved in such a successful, funny and intelligent comedy that has all the elements to be a perfect remake in all territories, and we are proud to work with Rizoma, one of the most active and brilliant production companies in South America,” said Latido’s Antonio Saura, adding: “We believe it is one of the hottest properties to handle this year and for that we are really thankful to Sebastian...

Latido Films, the sales company on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts” and “The Platform,” has unveiled a slew of over 30 sales deals on a wide-ranging slate of titles, led by a U.S. pick-up on “All the Names of God,” a bouquet of transactions on “Aire,” the Dominican Republic’s Oscar entry, and an HBO regional licensing deal on “Saturn Return,” Spain’s Academy Award submission.

The deals are announced as Latido hits the American Film Market with Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s “Re-Creation,” one of its hottest tickets, and Toronto Platform winner “They Will Be Dust,” which has clinched an early sale with Taiwan’s Sky Digi, with others in the offing.

“We have great hopes for ‘Re-Creation,’ Jim Sheridan’s trial film. He has been incredibly committed to tell this story, who I think is probably one of his more personal since ‘In the Name of the Father,...

Latido Films has acquired rights from A Contracorriente Films to represent international sales on “La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés,” the first feature as a director of Antón Álvarez, better known as C. Tangana, his stage name as a singer-songwriter.

A Contracorriente Films, which has bought world rights to the doc feature, will release “La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés” in Spain on Dec. 20.

The deal marks one of the key sales rights pick-ups on one of the films which is building strong word of mouth and anticipation before its world premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival, thanks to press and private screenings.

Highlighted to Variety by Jose Luis Rebordinos as a “great doc feature” and part of an exciting build in non-fiction in Spain, “La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés” has been selected to open San Sebastian’s New Directors, its biggest sidebar.

It also marks one of the...

Madrid-based Latido Films has boarded Andalusian Sandra Romero’s “As Silence Passes By,” taking international sales rights to one of the most awaited Spanish debuts of 2024.

Written by Romero, her first feature was announced last week as one of a first 10 titles confirmed for San Sebastian’s New Directors competition, its most impactful sidebar.

Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” “straddles the border between fact and fiction, enlisting real people to play poetically embellished versions of themselves in order to reach a deeper truth,” said a Variety review.

“As Silence Passes By” takes a similar route, reaping large dividends in an unyielding psychological authenticity and social knowingness.

It begins with Antonio, 32, who has carved out a life for himself in Madrid, returning to his deep Andalusia small town during the region’s Holy Week. He returns because it’s clear that his twin brother Javier is either no longer capable or unwilling...

Madrid-based sales outlet Latido Films has unveiled sales on key titles from its European Film Market and Malaga Film Festival (March 1-10) slates.

Beginning with films in pre-production, Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s true crime courtroom docu-drama Re-creation starring Vicky Krieps has secured pre-sales for Greece (Spentzos) and Portugal (Outsider). The film sees a fictional jury assess the real-life unsolved murder of French TV producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier, who was found dead at her Ireland holiday home in 1996.

Spy thriller Raqqa from Oscar-winning producer-director Gerardo Herrero has pre-sold to the Middle East (Empire). Herrero’s previous feature, Under Therapy,...

Malaga — Isaki Lacuesta’s “Saturn Return” (“Segundo Premio”), always a frontrunner, topped this week’s Malaga Festival winning its best picture, director (with co-director Pol Rodríguez) and editing (Javi Frutos) awards.

The triple plaudit delivers further recognition for a feature which pulls off the double achievement of being formally inventive and great fun at one and the same time.

Turning on Spanish indie rock group Los Planetas storied attempts to making their third and finally iconic album, but really about people’s need to recast the past as comprehensible narrative and a biopic parody, A broad audience play, “Saturn Return” has been hailed by Spanish newspaper El Mundo as a “masterpiece.”

“Saturn Returns” will do nothing to dent Lacuesta’s status as seemingly suddenly, after years in the wilderness as a supposedly radical filmmaker too out there to take on more ambitious budgets. Lacuesta’s feel-good concluding episode to “Offworld,...

Malaga, Spain — “The Chapel,” from “Piggy” director Carlota Pereda, Celia Rico’s competition title “Little Loves,” loved by a lot of critics, and “Free Falling,” produced by “Society of the Snow’s” J.A. Bayona and that film’s producer Belén Atienza, looked like three of the hottest tickets at this week’s Malaga market and Spanish Screenings which rated as the most upbeat in years.

Most all sales agents on the films – focusing on titles from Spain and Latin America – whose ranks are now swelled by Antonia Nava’s Neo Art International, forecast or saw deal traction on more than one title or a broad slate of films.

“Malaga was great for our movies,” said Latido Films’ Antonio Saura.

“For us, it’s been the best Spanish Screenings of the last years,” reported Luis Recart at Bendita Film Sales.

Why of course is another matter. 10 takeaways on a Spanish bull market,...

The international endurance of Spanish film adaptations was front and center this year at the Malaga Festival Industry Zone’s (Mafiz) Remake Day event on Thursday, with a presentation of Shanghai-based Aim Media’s “Lose to Win,” the Chinese adaptation of the Latido Films-sold 2018 hit “Campeones” (“Champions”), directed by Javier Fesser.

“Champions” is produced by Luis Manso at Fesser’s Madrid-based Películas Pendleton (“Historias Lamentables”) alongside Alvaro Longoria at Spain’s Morena Films (“Everybody Knows”).

Global remakes of “Champions,” about a basketball coach who coaches a team of people with disabilities as community service, have so far included Arabic, German, U.S. (starring Woody Harrelson and directed by Bobby Farrelly) and Indian versions, not to mention a hugely successful Spanish sequel.

Discussing “Lose to Win,” directed by Gao Hu, ahead of a special screening of the film, Aim Media’s Emily Ruan detailed the benefits and challenges presented by the production.

Going into Berlin’s European Film Market, Spain’s biggest sales agents are under no illusion just how tough international markets have become.

“Paradoxically, in one of the best moments for Spanish productions, we are finding that some of our top dramas are getting hard to sell unless selected in Cannes, Venice or Berlin,” says Latido Films CEO Antonio Saura.

Also, “If American productions dominate at least 80% of markets, and local productions claim about half what remains. You’re left with just 10% of markets for many wonderful films to try to find audience opportunities. Competition is fiercer than ever,” he says.

“Many newer platforms are insisting on revenue shares. This rarely works for us,” observes Feel Sales’ Yennifer Fasciani.

Yet companies are fighting back. “Either a film works very well or not at all. Our strategy is increasingly focusing on major titles, leaving no middle ground,” states Film Factory Entertainment’s Vicente Canales,...

Upscale crossover sales agent Latido Films has acquired international sales rights to “Re-creation,” directed by legendary Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan, whose “In the Name of the Father” won a Berlin Golden Bear in 1994.

Starring Vicky Krieps, a Cannes’ Un Certain Regard winner for “Corsage,” the docu-drama is co-written and co-directed by Irish artist and filmmaker David Merriman (“Rock Against Homelessness”). It will be unveiled to buyers at the European Film Market.

Like Sheridan’s prior five-hour documentary, SkyCrime’s “Murder at the Cottage,” “Re-creation” turns on what the earlier title calls Ireland’s most shocking unresolved crime whose victim, French TV producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier, was battered to death at her holiday home in West Cork, Ireland, in 1996.

A fiction/reality hybrid feature, “Re-creation” introduces a fictional jury, inspired by Sidney Lumet’s “12 Angry Men,” which sifts through the facts, lies and convenient truths behind the murder, Sheridan told Variety.

Cementing its reputation as a harbinger of emerging talent, Madrid-based Latido Films has acquired the international sales rights to “Tras el Verano,” the debut film from Yolanda Centeno picked out as one of Variety’s 10 Women Directors to Watch from Spain, compiled in 2021.

Alfa Pictures is handling distribution in Spain.

Following on hits such as Colombia’s “Killing Jesus” and “Carmen & Lola” and “Lullaby” from Spain, this acquisition not only underscores Latido’s interest in nurturing and promoting fresh, innovative voices in cinema but also highlights the strength of a new generation of talent emanating from the Spanish-speaking world.

Centeno’s debut feature has attracted strong talent in the form of Goya and Gaudi winners Ruth Gabriel (“Numbered Days”) and Alexandra Jiménez (“The Distances” “100 Metres”).

Joining them is actor Juan Diego Botto whose own directorial debut “On The Fringe” reaped recognition at the Goyas, Venice and other festivals.

In times of dramatic change for the film-tv industry, Spanish auteur cinema is booming, goosed by multiple significant and high-quality titles, reaping prizes, critical praise and profile at international festivals.

Beyond the preeminent interest in established auteurs such as Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro Amenábar, J.A. Bayona, Isabel Coixet and Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Spanish sales agents and distributors celebrate the increasingly strong presence of young local film auteurs on the international scene. The big question is, however, how this profile can translate into box office impact and substantial sales.

“We are living a very sweet moment in terms of the recognition of our cinema at international festivals, with ever more filmmakers who are creating dazzling works,” says Luis Renart, founder of Santa Cruz de Tenerife-based sales company Bendita Films.

“There’s a generation of creators and producers who look to international auteur cinema when they build their projects, made with a European sensibility and a very marked identity,...

Latido Films is venturing yet more into the inspiring world of e-sports and viral fame with Goya Award winning producer-helmer Alvaro Longoria’s new doc-feature, “La vida de Brianeitor.” The film serves as a spin-off from Javier Fesser’s Spanish box office smash hit, “Championext,” which Latido is also selling.

The doc follows Brian Albacete, better known as Brianeitor2022. With millions of social media followers, an acting role in a top-charting Spanish film “Championext” and a spot on Team Heretics—one of Spain’s leading e-sport entities—Brian is redefining what it means to be a star. And he’s doing it all despite living with muscular dystrophy and spina bifida.

“Javier Fesser…told me Brian was an amazing subject for a doc. I wasn’t really sure until I met him in person,” recalled Alvaro Longoria, the film’s director, and the producer at Morena Films behind “Championext.” Brian...

Madrid-based sales house Latido Films and indie distributor-producer #ConUnPack are joining forces to handle international distribution rights to Tribeca Festival’s hit “One Night with Adela,” the feature debut of Spanish writer-director Hugo Ruiz snagged Tribeca’s best new narrative director award.

An audacious revenge thriller, lensed using a single-shot technique, the film marries concepts of religion and sin with childhood trauma.

“One Night with Adela” toplines Laura Galán, the star of Carlota Pereda’s 2022 Sundance hit “Piggy,” a role that earned her a Goya prize for best new actress.

In “One Night,” Galán plays a disturbed street sweeper in Madrid, who savagely enacts retribution for an incident from her youth over the course of one night.

Although not everyone is to blame for her miserable life, a cocktail of drugs, sex, and deep-seated fury fuels her cruelty towards most who cross her path, culminating in a shocking scene.

Variety...

In the lead-up to Cannes, Spanish film sales continue to show resilience despite shifting market trends and global challenges. The market signals suggest an enduring preference for genre movies and high-concept films, while the sale of arthouse fare remains tough.

Antonio Saura, director general of Latido Films, tells Variety, “The trends we are seeing confirm the trends we identified last year — movies with a strong concept, genre in general, generate interest, [whereas] drama and ‘art house’ is more complicated and requires a different type of attention and positioning.”

While there are signs of interest for movies with top talent attached, smaller films without a significant festival presence face an uphill battle.

This trend is underscored by the Spanish films selected for Cannes, which range from Benito Zambrano’s “Jumping the Fence” and Roya Sadat’s “Sima’s Song,” to Pau Calpe’s “Werewolf.” These films, part of the Spanish Screenings Goes to Cannes section,...

Dominican filmmaker Leticia Tonos’ sci-fi drama “Aire” has won the inaugural Fantastic Latido Award at the Cannes Film Market’s new Fantastic Pavilion genre hub.

Presented by Madrid-based Latido Films, the Fantastic Latido Award offers international sales representation for the winning film.

“Aire” centers on Tania, a conservation biologist living in a future dystopian world where the human race has been reduced to extinction level by pollution and disease. In an effort to keep her species from disappearing completely, she tries with the help of Vida, an artificial intelligence system, to self-inseminate herself.

Her life with the AI system is disrupted, however, when Azarias, a mysterious traveler, arrives, creating a tense and dangerously toxic three-way relationship.

“Aire” stars Sophie Gaelle Gomez (“Rosario Tijeras”), Dominican actor Jalsen Santana and Spain’s Paz Vega as the voice of Vida.

Produced by Tonos’ Producciones Línea Espiral Srl and Lantica Media along with Dominican...

Few European arthouse-crossover film sales agents have better weathered the ebb and flow of international market dynamics than Madrid’s Latido Films, which turns 20 in 2023.

Proof of that came at April’s Platino Awards, where Latido scored six statuettes, split between an acting double for Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s “Lullaby” and four for Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” which has already swept Spain’s Goya Awards and scored a French Cesar for foreign film.

Scoring €6.8 million ($7.5 million) in Spain, and 327,000 admissions in France, “The Beasts” also rates as one of the top-performing recent Spanish-language movies.

If Latido has survived for so long, insists director general Antonio Saura, it’s because of a core strategy of “working with talent, our search for talent.” Beyond that, other keys have been “collaboration with production companies that understand long-term relationships, and well-established relationships with clients.”

Companies with which Latido has held or holds...

“Chinas,” the third feature from Spanish writer-director Arantxa Echevarria, who won the Goya for best new director in 2018 for her Debut, “Carmen & Lola,” has been acquired for international sales by Latido Films.

Filmed in Madrid’s Chinatown, the narrative follows two disparate families with ties to China, navigating the weighty segregation of a city that for better or worse, they call home.

“These neighborhoods allow immigrants to weave networks of solidarity and community. They cling to them as part of their own identity away from home, but they also become spaces that distance them from the true reality of where they live” Echevarria told Variety.

Yun is nine, a second-generation immigrant whose family lives in the neighborhood, she calls herself Lucía and oscillates between a strict and traditional homelife and an assimilated Spanish life at school. While Claudia, her 17-year-old sister, rebels fully, coming into her own while met...

Buzz titles include animation ’Dragonkeeper’ and ‘Co-Husbands’.

Mafiz, the industry sector of the Málaga Film Festival, which closed on Sunday March 19, attracted its highest numbers of attendees to date, up 54% on last year.

In total. 1,897 industry players came from 64 countries, with a gender parity of 963 men and 934 women.

International promotion platform Spanish Screenings registered the highest number of participants at 206 buyers and producers. Overall by sector Mafiz attracted 1,095 producers, 206 buyers, 70 festivals delegates, 26 sales agents and 36 exhibitors and local distributors.

The Málaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event project (Maff) scored 152 attendants and 568 one-to-one meetings around 39 Ibero-American projects.

The response from buyers has...

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.

Madrid-based Latido Films is partnering with the organizers of the new genre-focused Fantastic Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film on a new award that will offer international distribution to selected Spanish-language Iberoamerican films.

The prize will also provide theatrical release in Latin America for winning titles.

News of the prize comes as plans for the Fantastic Pavilion, one of the major innovation of this year’s Cannes Film Market, are beginning g to emerge, based on a undeniable market reality: Elevated genre films and thrillers, if they are shaped by an auteurist vision, are proving to be among the surest sellers on the international market and genre is embraced by a new generation of young filmmakers who are often creating artistically ambitious films of substance, sometimes dealing with urgent gender and social issues.

Conceived by Pablo Guisa Koestinger, Grupo Mórbido CEO, Bernardo Bergeret, Ventana Sur co-director,...

Major deals close for Latin American and Spanish content at EFM.

In one of the largest deals done at the European Film Market (EFM) this year for Spanish and Latin American fare, Madrid-based Latido Films has closed a raft of deals on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s rural thrillerThe Beasts, Rocío Mesa’s magical-realist tale Tobacco Barns and Gustavo Hernández’s zombie horror Virus 32.

A big winner at the Goyas earlier this month and a box-office hit in Spain and France, The Beasts has been licensed to Scandinavia (Edge Entertainment), while Hernán Jabes’ erotic crime thriller Jezabel has gone to Italy, and...

It is huge deal for Latin American and Spanish content at the EFM.

In one of the largest deals done at the European Film Market (EFM) this year for Spanish and Latin American fare, Madrid-based Latido Films has closed a raft of deals on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s rural thrillerThe Beasts, Rocío Mesa’s magical-realist tale Tobacco Barns and Gustavo Hernández’s zombie horror Virus 32.

A big winner at the Goyas earlier this month and a box-office hit in Spain and France, The Beasts has been licensed to Scandinavia (Edge Entertainment), Hernández’s zombie horror Virus 32 has been sold...

Attendees included Carlo Chatrian, Agnieszka Holland, Wim Wenders and Volker Schlöndorff.

The Berlin film festival honoured the legacy of legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, who died aged 91 earlier this month, with a special screening of his last film, documentary Walls Can Talk yesterday (Feb 20).

The attendees included Berlinale’s director Carlo Chatrian, the president of the European Film Academy and Polish director Agnieszka Holland and German directors Wim Wenders and Volker Schlöndorff.

Chatrian said the festival wanted to honour his contribution to cinema and also the special link he had with the Berlinale where he premiered The Hunt (1966), winner of...

“Los pequeños amores,” the latest film from Celia Rico who made a splash at the 2018 San Sebastian Festival with “Journey to a Mother’s Room,” has been acquired for international sales by Spain-based Latido Films.

Produced by Barcelona-based Arcadia Motion Pictures, which co-produced Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s 2023 Goya winner and box office breakout “The Beasts, and France’s Noodles Production, Rico’s second feature is set in a bucolic countryside. It weighs in as a mother-daughter two-hander sparked after strongly independent mother Ani falls over walking the dog and is forced to use a wheelchair to get around.

Daughter Teresa cuts short a vacation to come to her side, their co-habitation grating and revealing multiple – sometime generational – differences as the film peels back the layers of their relation, exposing both women’s ambitions and fears.

Adriana Azores plays Ani, María Vázquez is Teresa.

“There are several reasons Latido had to be involved...

Over the past 20 years or so, a surfeit of arthouse titles and an older demographic turning away from theaters have worn away at the sales of non-English language films.

Currently, cinema across the world, and especially arthouse, is stuck between a rock — global streamers often paying less, striking fewer worldwide deals and buying fewer finished movies — and a hard place: a pandemic-drained theatrical business for all but a few tentpoles.

“A few years ago, even if a film wasn’t perfect and had limited festival play, it sold at least a little,” says Film Factory founder Vicente Canales. “Now, either a film works, and sells pretty much the world, or it doesn’t work at all.”

Yet Spain’s top sales agents remain broadly optimistic about the future.

For one thing, some films do still do business, led by new titles from star auteurs that have A-festival play, such as...

“Championext”(“Campeonex”), the anticipated follow-up to Javier Fesser’s Spanish comedy triumph “Champions” (“Campeones”) which scooped Forqué, Goya, and Feroz awards for best picture and delighted audiences to the tune of a stellar €18.5 million (21.4 million) box office grab, has been acquired for international sales by Latido Films (“The Beasts”).

Written by Fesser (“Camino”) and Athenea Mata (“El Secreto de Lilith”) in collaboration with David Marqués, the film follows nearly the same cast of beloved characters two years after they’ve left the fierce competition behind. A Los Amigos reunion will see “the landscape move from the world of basketball to the world of athletics for people with disabilities while making room to explore the fascinating world of metaverses and virtual reality,” Fesser revealed in a statement.

Delving further into the world of its protagonists, the film allows for a broader reveal while cementing the feel-good sentiment and relatability that brought the original high-acclaim.

Spanish auteur Carlos Saura died on Friday of natural causes, the Film Academy of Spain confirmed. He was 91.

In a statement, the org stated: “The Film Academy deeply regrets to announce the death of Carlos Saura, Goya de Honor 2023. Saura, one of the fundamental filmmakers in the history of Spanish cinema, died today at his home at the age of 91, surrounded by his loved ones.”

Born in 1932 in Huesca, Aragon – the same part of Spain as Luis Buñuel, whom he recognised as his mentor – Saura was taken by his family to Madrid during its Civil War. As a child, Saura he listened with horror to its bombings, the trauma of its violence never leaving him, inspiring his third feature, 1965’s “The Hunt,” a portrait of a Franquist ruling class which won him a Berlin Silver Bear.

This crowned him as the leading light of a New Spanish Cinema, an attempt...

Sales agent has already agreed German distribution deal for Jenna Hasse’s feature debut.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Swiss director Jenna Hasse’s Berlinale Generation Kplus competitor L’Amour du Monde (Longing For The World), which Spain’s Latido Films has boarded for international sales.

Latido has already inked an early deal for distribution of L’Amour du Monde in Germany with Mindjazz Pictures. The distributor released Christine Kugler and Günther Kurth’s Generation 14plus title Kalle Kosmonaut last year.

Set on the shores of Lake Geneva, Hasse’s feature debut centres around gentle fourteen-year-old Margaux,...

Sales agent has already agreed German distribution deal for Jenna Hasse’s feature debut.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Swiss director Jenna Hasse’s Berlinale Generation Kplus competitor Longing For The World (L’Amour du Monde), which Spain’s Latido Films has boarded for international sales.

Latido has already inked an early deal for distribution of Longing For The World in Germany with Mindjazz Pictures. The distributor released Christine Kugler and Günther Kurth’s Generation 14plus title Kalle Kosmonaut last year.

Set on the shores of Lake Geneva, Hasse’s feature debut centres around gentle fourteen-year-old Margaux,...

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

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

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

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

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

Following the successful path plowed by the first part of the saga, Madrid-based Latido Films has taken international sales rights outside Spain and Latin America to “A todo tren 2” (“The Kids Are Alright 2”), the latest family comedy from “Torrente” creator-star Santiago Segura, one of the biggest comedic talents in the Spanish-speaking world.

Released Dec. 2 in Spain by Warner Bros. Pictures, the new comedy adventure has maintained the audience interest of its predecessor, leading box office charts with €2.9 million (3.1 million) and 469,470 viewers after two weeks.

The film toplines this time Paz Vega and Paz Padilla playing respectively Clara and Susana.

In the story, a year ago Ricardo (Segura) was the chosen parent to take all the kids, accompanied by grandfather Felipe (Leo Harlem), to a summer camp, but unfortunately get locked outside the train leaving the children inside. This time round, Clara, the mother, doesn’t trust them and decides to...

Cannes hit marks fifth feature from Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

Antonio Saura’s Latido Films has licensed all US rights on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s psychological thriller and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection The Beasts – one of the standouts at last week’s Ventana Sur market – to Los Angeles-based Greenwich Entertainment.

The film screened in Buenos Aires under the auspices of Spanish Screenings on Tour and is a co-production between Spain’s Arcadia Motion Pictures and Caballo Films and France’s Le Pacte, all of whom partnered on Sorogoyen’s feature Mother.

The Beasts follows a middle-aged French couple who move to a small...

Cannes hit marks fifth feature from Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

Antonio Saura’s Latido Films has licensed all US rights on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s psychological thriller and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection The Beasts – one of the standouts at last week’s Ventana Sur market – to Los Angeles-based Greenwich Entertainment.

The film screened in Buenos Aires under the auspices of Spanish Screenings on Tour and is a co-production between Spain’s Arcadia Motion Pictures and Caballo Films and France’s Le Pacte, all of whom partnered on Sorogoyen’s feature Mother.

The Beasts follows a middle-aged French couple who move to a small...

Attendees also noted Buenos Aires event is becoming more of a project development market than a sales market.

Genre and animation titles dominated at Latin America’s leading film and TV market Ventana Sur as business vied for attention with the World Cup in Qatar, where the progress of the Argentinian national side led by Lionel Messi has created a festive mood in Buenos Aires.

Of particular interest at the market, which ran from November 28-December 2 and hosted screenings, presentations, panels and meetings, was the new Fan Latina Blood Window sidebar dedicated to female creators. Argentinian titles such as Jimena Monteoliva...

Closing Japan with Medallion and French-speaking Canada with Axiom and fielding offers for the U.S., China and the U.K, “The Beasts” is on track to shortly sell well over half the major territories in the world for sales agent Latido Films. as

The sales come as Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s rural thriller heads to this week’s Ventana Sur as one of its biggest market highlights.

In further new deals, the Spain-set modern-day Western has also now been swooped on by HBO Eastern Europe and has licensed Poland (Aurora), Hungary (Cinefil), Portugal (Outsiders) and the Baltics (Capella).

These pacts add to prior acquisitions by Movies Inspired in Italy and Imagine in Benelux, Kino Mediteran in ex-Yugoslavia territories and Transilvania Film for Romania.

A Cannes Premiere world bow co-produced by Spain’s Arcadia Motion Pictures and Sorogoyen’s Caballo Films with France’s Le Pacte, “The Beasts” ran up 327,125 ticket sales...

The 70th San Sebastian rounded its final bend with new deals announced for Spain by A Contracorriente, Bteam and Avalon, joy among industry players at a first full on site festival, blessed by early autumn sunshine, a sense of an even slower international sales business.

Equally, Spain’s market and production sector remain on ebullient, buoyed by art-house breakouts and a vibrant drama series production. Five takeaways from this year’s San Sebastian Festival, which wraps tomorrow, Sept. 24:

San Sebastian Grows (Again)

“There are markets that have improved during Covid-19, and others that haven’t and San Sebastian is a festival that’s improved thanks to its industry activities,” says Film Factory’s Vicente Canales. That build comes from afar, with a Films in Progress strand in 2002, an Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum from 2012, the Ikusmira Berriak development residency from 2017 and now a Creative Investors Conference.

There’s a form of cross collaterization here.

“Rebellion,” from José Luis Rugeles whose “Alias María” competed at Cannes Un Certain Regard and was Colombia’s Oscar entry, has been acquired for international sales by Latido Films.

Latido will be bringing the title onto the market at Toronto.

In the film, Rugeles takes a non-linear approach to the narrative drifting through moments in Arroyo’s life and psyche from childhood through to the end of his life. “Rebellion” explores memory, addiction and Arroyo’s deep connection to the composition of song.

It shows the birth of legendary melodies being recorded obsessively by Arroyo into multiple tape recorders as he layers ideas upon each other. These fragments infiltrate the soundtrack throughout, at times bursting into full band performances of Arroyo’s famous songs. The authenticity of the music is aided by some of the musicians involved having played with Arroyo.

Lead producer Federico Durán of Rhayuela said: “When we...

“Tequila, Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll,” from Goya Award-winning producer-helmer Alvaro Longoria, has been acquired for international sales by Latido Films.

Set up at Madrid’s Morena Films, which Longoria co-founded, doc marks a return to directing for Longoria, whose 2012 debut, “Sons of the Clouds,” produced by Javier Bardem, scored a Spanish Academy Goya while 2015’s “The Propaganda Game” nabbed a nomination. Meanwhile, just in the last few years, Longoria has produced Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes opener “Everybody Knows” and Spanish box office juggernaut “Champions.”

“I produce, that is how I make a living, but I direct documentaries as a passion.’ said Longoria.

Set to world premiere at this month’s San Sebastian Festival as part of its Made in Spain showcase, “Tequila” charts the rise of the Argentine-Spanish rock band fronted by Ariel Rot and Alejo Stivel.

The two are set to perform again in a series of post-film screening concerts.

“Walls Can Talk,” the latest film by Spain Carlos Saura, director of “Raise Ravens,” “Deprisa, Deprisa” and “Carmen,” has been acquired for intentional sales by Madrid-based Latido.

Produced by María del Puy Alvarado at Malvalanda and distributed in Spain by José Maria nd Miguel Morales’ Wanda Vision, “Walls Can Talk” will world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival as an Rtve Gala.

The doc feature sees Saura conduct his own inquest into the origins of art, directing and for once starring in a film. In it, he visits masterpieces of paleolithic art– in Spain’s Altamira and El Castillo caves, for instance – and asks modern (Miquel Barceló) and graffiti artists and urban creators about what drives them to paint.

Also taking in the extraordinary art at France’s Chauvet Cave – “painting’s great masterpiece,” as it is described in the film – “Walls Can Talk” (“Las paredes hablan”) suggests that...

Suggesting an appreciable recovery in the dynamism of international film markets, Madrid-based Latido Films has unveiled a raft of deals on its Cannes line-up, led by standout sales for Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Cannes Premiere player “The Beasts.”

The Spain-set rural thriller was acquired by Movies Inspired in Italy and Imagine in Benelux.

Co-produced by Spain’s Arcadia Motion Pictures and Sorogoyen’s Caballo Films with France’s Le Pacte, “The Beasts” has also been taken by Kino Mediteran in former Yugoslavia territories and Transilvania Film in Romania.

Meanwhile, fruit of Latido’s strengthening of its remake rights sales strategies, the company has optioned Mexican movie adaptation rights on Nicolás Postiglione’s drama “Immersion” to Paloma Negra Films and Whisky, as a French redo of Gastón Duprat’s Spanish-Argentine drama “Masterpiece” is moving into production.

Also, Latido is in advanced negotiations on further remake rights deals in France, Italy and Mexico,...

In February, Carla Simon’s “Alcarràs” walked off with Spain’s first Berlin Golden Bear in nearly 40 years as Spain notched up its biggest main competition presence at the Berlinale since 1997.

This May, Spain has four movies selected for Cannes – Albert Serra’s Competition entry “Pacifiction”; Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” in Premiere; Elena López Riera’s Directors’ Fortnight bow “The Water”; and José Luis López Linares’ “Goya, Carrière and the Ghost of Buñuel,” a Cannes Classics doc feature. That reps a Cannes presence roughly on par with recent standout years such as 2018 and 2019.

With Netflix launching “Through My Window” in February, three of the streaming giant’s five most-watched non-English language movies are from Spain.

The big money is now in TV. Meanwhile Spanish cinema, a darling of arthouse crowds during Spain’s 1975-1982 transition to democracy, is once more back on the international radar, though faced by huge...