Greek prime minister attends festival to highlight incentives for international projects.
Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel’s I Have Electric Dreams has won the €10,000 Golden Alexander-Theo Angelopoulos prize for best film at Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) which took place from November 3-13.
The film’s lead actor Reinaldo Amien Gutierrez also won the best actor award at the festival.
The French, Belgian and Costa Rican co-production, which premiered in Locarno, follows a young girl’s coming of age and her relationship with her estranged father. World sales are handled by Greece’s Heretic.
The international competition jury...
Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel’s I Have Electric Dreams has won the €10,000 Golden Alexander-Theo Angelopoulos prize for best film at Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) which took place from November 3-13.
The film’s lead actor Reinaldo Amien Gutierrez also won the best actor award at the festival.
The French, Belgian and Costa Rican co-production, which premiered in Locarno, follows a young girl’s coming of age and her relationship with her estranged father. World sales are handled by Greece’s Heretic.
The international competition jury...
- 11/16/2022
- by Alexis Grivas
- ScreenDaily
Imanol Rayo’s “Dog Days” promises to be an ambitious look at family, the challenges of adolescence, the impact of climate change and irreversible transformation.
The project, which won this year’s main prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum, is the Basque filmmaker’s first original script. His previous films, including “Two Brothers” and “Death Knell,” were based on books.
Speaking to Variety, Rayo says the story’s origin lies in a phenomena that has been transpiring in Spain for a long time, namely the popularity of campsites located at reservoirs across the country, to where middle-class families flock during the summer holidays.
The reservoirs themselves, however, built in the last century during the reign of Francisco Franco, flooded and destroyed some 500 villages, forcibly displacing their populations. In recent years many of these submerged villages have reemerged due to dropping levels of water caused by the ongoing drought.
The project, which won this year’s main prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum, is the Basque filmmaker’s first original script. His previous films, including “Two Brothers” and “Death Knell,” were based on books.
Speaking to Variety, Rayo says the story’s origin lies in a phenomena that has been transpiring in Spain for a long time, namely the popularity of campsites located at reservoirs across the country, to where middle-class families flock during the summer holidays.
The reservoirs themselves, however, built in the last century during the reign of Francisco Franco, flooded and destroyed some 500 villages, forcibly displacing their populations. In recent years many of these submerged villages have reemerged due to dropping levels of water caused by the ongoing drought.
- 11/13/2022
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Imanol Rayo’s “Dog Days,” a coming-of-age story set one sizzling summer in the Spanish countryside, won the top prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum, which wrapped with an award ceremony Wednesday night.
The Basque director’s fourth feature took home the Two Thirty-Five Co-Production Award, offering full post-production image and sound to a film that’s currently in development. Producer Iker Ganuza of Spanish production outfit Lamia was on hand to accept the prize from the jury, which praised the film as “a story about both emerging and buried passions, approached with a very personal touch of sensibility.”
Speaking to Variety ahead of the Thessaloniki industry event, Rayo described his “sensual summer story” as “a reflection on the way in which the intervention of the human being or ‘climate change’ modifies the landscapes, habits and lives of ordinary people.” The director’s debut feature, “Two Brothers,...
The Basque director’s fourth feature took home the Two Thirty-Five Co-Production Award, offering full post-production image and sound to a film that’s currently in development. Producer Iker Ganuza of Spanish production outfit Lamia was on hand to accept the prize from the jury, which praised the film as “a story about both emerging and buried passions, approached with a very personal touch of sensibility.”
Speaking to Variety ahead of the Thessaloniki industry event, Rayo described his “sensual summer story” as “a reflection on the way in which the intervention of the human being or ‘climate change’ modifies the landscapes, habits and lives of ordinary people.” The director’s debut feature, “Two Brothers,...
- 11/11/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
New films from Wissam Charaf, whose sophomore feature “Dirty Difficult Dangerous” premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, and San Sebastian prize winner Imanol Rayo (“Two Brothers”) are among the 14 projects selected for this year’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.
The event, which takes places onsite and online from Nov. 7 – 11, presents a slate of films in development from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, the Black Sea and the wider Mediterranean region to an audience of co-producers, distributors, festival programmers and sales agents.
The selection features works from 13 countries, including nine directors making their feature debuts, representing a range of styles, genres and dramatic themes, from a coming-of-age story about two strangers brought together in pursuit of a lost backpack (“Lost Years”) to the tale of a disconsolate lover determined to make his ailing partner happy at any cost (“Love Thy Neighbor”), and a pulled-from-the-headlines crime...
The event, which takes places onsite and online from Nov. 7 – 11, presents a slate of films in development from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, the Black Sea and the wider Mediterranean region to an audience of co-producers, distributors, festival programmers and sales agents.
The selection features works from 13 countries, including nine directors making their feature debuts, representing a range of styles, genres and dramatic themes, from a coming-of-age story about two strangers brought together in pursuit of a lost backpack (“Lost Years”) to the tale of a disconsolate lover determined to make his ailing partner happy at any cost (“Love Thy Neighbor”), and a pulled-from-the-headlines crime...
- 11/6/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Navarre has never had such a prominent presence at the San Sebastian Festival as in this year’s lineup.
Five linked-to-Navarre productions – three films, a TV series and a documentary – will screen at the Festival, highlighting its status as a standout hub for the Spanish audiovisual industry.
Navarre’s higher-profile at San Sebastian, the biggest movie event in the Spanish-speaking world, is no coincidence.
Since 2015, the northern Spain region has attracted Spanish productions and co-production shoots thanks in part to a 35% corporate tax deduction for Navarre-based companies investing in productions that spend at least 40% of their budgets in the territory.
Productions such as HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” Terry Gillian’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” Asian B.O. hit “Line Walker 2: Invisible Spy,” Netflix hit prison drama “La noche de 12 años,” and local blockbuster “Ocho apellidos vascos” (“Spanish Affair”) filmed there in recent years.
The region is taking advantage of accessible,...
Five linked-to-Navarre productions – three films, a TV series and a documentary – will screen at the Festival, highlighting its status as a standout hub for the Spanish audiovisual industry.
Navarre’s higher-profile at San Sebastian, the biggest movie event in the Spanish-speaking world, is no coincidence.
Since 2015, the northern Spain region has attracted Spanish productions and co-production shoots thanks in part to a 35% corporate tax deduction for Navarre-based companies investing in productions that spend at least 40% of their budgets in the territory.
Productions such as HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” Terry Gillian’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” Asian B.O. hit “Line Walker 2: Invisible Spy,” Netflix hit prison drama “La noche de 12 años,” and local blockbuster “Ocho apellidos vascos” (“Spanish Affair”) filmed there in recent years.
The region is taking advantage of accessible,...
- 9/18/2020
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
In a sign of the times, Spain’s San Sebastian Festival, the biggest movie event in the Spanish-speaking world, announced Thursday two of its biggest Spanish premieres, both of which are TV series: Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “Riot Police,” a Movistar Plus original, and Aitor Gabilondo’s “Patria,” a banner title at HBO Europe.
They will be joined in San Sebastian’s official selection by two in-competition movies from directors who underscore other trends now coursing through Spain’s content industries: Pablo Agüero’s “Akelarre” and Antonio Méndez Esparza’s “Courtroom 3H.”
As scripted drama looks to reach far larger audiences, the cream of Spain’s directorial talent has moved into the longer format, few with more lauded results than Sorogoyen, whose “Riot Police” is being talked up by the few who have seen its first episodes as one of the crowning achievements to date of Movistar Plus.
The first full...
They will be joined in San Sebastian’s official selection by two in-competition movies from directors who underscore other trends now coursing through Spain’s content industries: Pablo Agüero’s “Akelarre” and Antonio Méndez Esparza’s “Courtroom 3H.”
As scripted drama looks to reach far larger audiences, the cream of Spain’s directorial talent has moved into the longer format, few with more lauded results than Sorogoyen, whose “Riot Police” is being talked up by the few who have seen its first episodes as one of the crowning achievements to date of Movistar Plus.
The first full...
- 7/30/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
San Sebastian — Basque cinema is attacking the future with higher industrial and creative expectations than ever, playing off two motors: Co-production with other parts of Spain, international equity partnerships.
Two game-changers in the Basque film landscape, “Handia,” winner of 10 Spanish Academy Goya Awards in 2018, and “Loreak,” Spain’s 2016 Oscar submission, have contributed to consolidate local industry’s self-confidence in recent years.
The resurgence of Basque cinema is led by established production outfits such as Irusoin, Moriarti Produkzioak, Txintxua Films, Kowalski Films and Señor y Señora, whose managing boards combine in many cases talented creators and ambitious producers, which has proved a highly advantageous formula.
“There is an artistic and entrepreneurial ambition to make films that can reach the global market,” says Señor y Señora’s Leire Apellaniz, producer of San Sebastian New Directors player “Las letras de Jordi,” by Maider Fernández, and Aritz Moreno’s Sitges contender “Ventajas de viajar en tren.
Two game-changers in the Basque film landscape, “Handia,” winner of 10 Spanish Academy Goya Awards in 2018, and “Loreak,” Spain’s 2016 Oscar submission, have contributed to consolidate local industry’s self-confidence in recent years.
The resurgence of Basque cinema is led by established production outfits such as Irusoin, Moriarti Produkzioak, Txintxua Films, Kowalski Films and Señor y Señora, whose managing boards combine in many cases talented creators and ambitious producers, which has proved a highly advantageous formula.
“There is an artistic and entrepreneurial ambition to make films that can reach the global market,” says Señor y Señora’s Leire Apellaniz, producer of San Sebastian New Directors player “Las letras de Jordi,” by Maider Fernández, and Aritz Moreno’s Sitges contender “Ventajas de viajar en tren.
- 9/24/2019
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
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