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The feature debut by Macarena Astorga, now in post-production, is a psychological thriller with a cast rounded off by Pedro Casablanc, Elvira Mínguez, Jesús Carroza and Fernando Tejero. Shot last August (once the state of emergency had been lifted in Spain), The House of Snails, the feature debut by Andalusian director Macarena Astorga, is a psychological thriller starring Javier Rey (seen recently in Secret Origins and El verano que vivimos) and Paz Vega, flanked by young Luna Fulgencio (Father There Is Only One) and a fresh face, Ava Salazar (the lead actress’s daughter). The cast is topped off by Peruvian thesps Carlos Alcántara and Norma Martínez, and Spaniards Pedro Casablanc, Elvira Mínguez, Vicente Vergara, Fernando Tejero and Jesús Carroza. The film, based on the novel of the same name, boasts a screenplay by the book’s author,...

Salvador Calvo’s “Adú” leads the way at Spain’s annual Goya Awards nominations with 14 nods, including for best film and best director.

“Las niñas” and “Akelarre” followed with nine nominations each, while “Rosa’s Wedding” has eight.

In the running for the best film Goya are “Adú,” a Netflix acquisition; “Ane” by David Perez Sanudo; “La boda de Rosa” by Iciar Bollain; “Las niñas” by Pilar Palomero; and “Sentimental” by Cesc Gay.

Competing for the best direction Goya will be Salvador Calvo for “Adú”; Juanma Bajo Ulloa for “Baby”; Iciar Bollain for “La boda de Rosa”; and Isabel Coixet for “Nieva en Benidorm.”

In the running for best European film are Jan Komasa’s “Corpus Christi”; Florian Zeller’s “The Father”; Viggo Mortensen’s “Falling”; and Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy.”

Mortensen was the big draw at the 2020 San Sebastian Film Festival where “Falling” played, and where he received the Donostia Award.

Box office in Spain crashed 72% in 2020 to a total €169.7 million ($207 million), with Covid-19 wiping over half a billion dollars from box office sales this year, Comscore announced Tuesday.

By way of comparison, 2019 total box office in Spain stood at €605 million ($738 million). Spanish cinema admissions similarly plunged from 105 million tickets sold last year, a recent-year record, to 28.2 million in 2020.

In line with analysts’ expectations for not only Spain but much of Europe, admissions were the lowest since records began in 1965, and plunged despite cinema theaters remaining open in most of Spain since late June, save for Catalonia and Andalusia, in contrast to Europe’s other biggest markets.

Yet even in such dire circumstances, there were blue sky moments. The highest-grossing movie of the year opened in Spain, for example, after Covid-19 had hit Madrid harder than any other city in Europe.

Released July 29 by Sony in a high-stakes gamble as second-wave...

Spain’s Oscar entry, “The Endless Trench,” a multi-award-winning feature from the Basque trio of Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga, has also become a flagship production for the Andalusian film sector.

The film was set and shot in Andalusia, with Andalusian actors and co-produced by Seville-based La Claqueta. Released last year in Spain by eOne, the film was acquired by Netflix, and bowed in the U.S. on Nov. 6.

Inspired by real-life events after the Spanish Civil War, “Trench” mainly filmed in Huelva’s Higuera de la Sierra, Carboneras and Paymogo for its Andalusian leg. Olmo Figueredo and Manuel H. Martín’s outfit La Claqueta was key for “Trench’s” financing, documentation and narrative support.

“Trench” exemplifies the possibilities of inter-regional partnerships in the Spanish film industry, this time between Andalusia and the Basque Country. Co-produced by La Claqueta with Basque companies Irusoin and Moriarti Produkzioak, alongside France’s Manny Films,...

European production-distribution-sales powerhouse Studiocanal is on board the Paris Bataclan attack feature “Un año, una noche,” with Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, breakout star of “Bpm (Beats Per Minute),” set to topline.

A Spanish-French co-production, “Un año, una noche” is produced by Bambú Producciones, creator of hit Spanish drama series such as “Gran Hotel,” “Velvet” and “Cable Girls”; Mister Fields and Friends, Bambu’s movie production label; and La Termita, the shingle run by the film’s director, Isaki Lacuesta. Lacuesta is best-known for left-of-field features such as San Sebastian Golden Shell winners “The Double Steps” and “Between Two Waters.”

Jérôme Vidal and Julien Naveau’s Paris-based Noodles Production produces out of France in collaboration with Studiocanal, which will handle international sales and distribution.

Inspired in large part by the autobiographical book written by Ramon González, a survivor of the attack, “Un año, una noche” depicts the Bataclan terrorist attack but also...

Underscoring a larger perceived global market potential for Spanish movies, Warner Bros. Pictures Intl. España is upping its bet on Spanish film production, in volume, budgets and talent.

Once largely acquiring, and then releasing in Spain, around six national films annually, the Hollywood studio now plans to invest in, or officially produce, eight-10 features a year, with Spanish star-studded casts and top directorial talent.

Disclosed to Variety as Warner Bros. Spain unveiled its 2020-21 slate at Spain’s San Sebastian Festival, the bigger push into Spanish production will also see the Hollywood studio continuing to partner on a joint development fund with Atresmedia Cine – a title-by-title non-exclusive alliance which is emerging as a key production axis on the Spanish movie scene.

At San Sebastian, Warner Bros. España updated Spanish media on five Spanish titles on its 2020-21 release slate, all produced by Atresmedia Cine, in association with Buendía Estudios. It...

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...

Participating in this year’s Marché du Film Speed Meetings for Spanish projects, La Claqueta’s highly-anticipated project “Tobacco Barns” has picked up a new co-producer in Belén Sánchez, one of Variety’s Catalan producers on the rise for 2020 as announced earlier this week, and a top independent sales agency in Spain’s Latido Films.

Sánchez comes to the production from Un Capricho Producciones, a company which has proven itself among the best at backing female filmmakers, including Lucia Alemany’s 2019 breakout San Sebastian hit “La Inocencia.”

Several films from Latido’s Spanish industry-leading catalog are hosting market screenings at this year’s Marché du Film, including Morena Films’ “Tales of the Lockdown,” featured in a Cinema from Spain pitching platform held at the Marché du Film on Wednesday, Agustí Villaronga’s “Born a King,” starring Ed Skrein and Hermione Corfield, “La Noche Mágica,” “The Sea Beyond,” “My Heart Goes Boom,...

Madrid — Bambú Producciones, a key driving force behind the international boom in Spanish TV fiction, is entering into a phase of business expansion, tapping showrunners Josep Cister and Diego Sotelo and boosting film production brand Mr. Fields & Friends Cinema.

Founded in 2007 by Ramón Campos and Teresa Fernández-Valdés, and minority owned by Studiocanal, Bambú has produced a large list of high-profile TV dramas led by “Gran Hotel” and “Velvet,” whose success, especially in Latin America, proved that, for the first time ever, there was a mass audience abroad for original Spanish series.

“We are at a time when, given the market demand for Bambú content, we have decided to grow, incorporating names as important as Cister and Sotelo,” Campos told Variety.

A former TV fiction director at Lagardère’s Boomerang TV in Spain, Cister has been responsible for series such as “Old Bridge’s Secret,” “The Time In Between,” “Acacias 38” and “Presumed Guilty.

San Sebastian — Warner Bros. Pictures Intl. has grabbed near-worldwide distribution rights to “El verano que vivimos,” a romantic melodrama directed by “Fariña” Carlos Sedes and co-produced with Atresmedia Cine, Bambú Producciones and La Claqueta.

One of the most awaited local releases of next year, “El verano que vivimos” rolls from August for nine weeks in Jerez de la Frontera and one week in Galicia. It is scheduled for a fall 2020 theatrical release.

In Spain, Warner will handle theatrical rights, while Amazon Prime nabbed rights to a first pay TV window. Private broadcaster Atresmedia, Atresmedia Cine’s sister company, will exploit a first window in free-to-air.

“Warner has the rest of worldwide rights,” Warner Bros. Pictures Intl. Spain managing director Pablo Nogueroles told Variety.

“El verano que vivimos” was presented Sunday at the San Sebastian Film Festival in a press conference that also served to unveil the ambitious plans for feature...

Despite even more outlets, thanks to the arrival of global streaming giants, Spanish sales agents and producers are caught in a current double-bind.

Sales to Netflix are diminishing, as it drives more into original production, but bullish theatrical distribution at home and abroad remains restricted to high-profile auteurs, big-budget productions or breakout titles.

In international, “a culture of fear has set in: independent distributors fear that smaller films don’t have a theatrical public,” says Antonio Saura of Spanish sales shingle Latido.

Both overseas and in Spain’s market, “average, mid-range movies no longer work,” says Mercedes Gamero of production house Atresmedia Cine. “Either you have real auteur-driven movies or big blockbusters.”

There’s an onus on originality. “It’s no longer about budgets but titles that impact, have something special,” whether that’s the cast or an novel concept or idea, says Iván Díaz at production and sales shingle Filmax.