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Backed by Mediaset España and Movistar Plus+, Cadiz’s South International Series Festival made an inaugural splash last year, showcasing some of Spain’s biggest series of the season.

In 2024, the Andalusia-based event has moved to a post-Mipcom stop-over berth, and with France as the guest country, attendance could well scale up.

Spain has hosted major TV markets for years now, including Conecta Fiction each summer and Iberseries & Platino Industria, which unspooled in Madrid last week. South sets itself apart by being a true festival in the vein of Canneseries or the Monte-Carlo Television Festival in France. While there will be plenty of roundtables, networking, and B2B get-togethers at South, the event’s main objective is to showcase some of the best new and new-ish series from around the world.

“From the very beginning, the idea was to create something different from what was already being done in Spain,...

Chile’s Fabula and Spain’s Alea Media have unveiled they are allying on development of “A Long Petal of the Sea,” based on a 2019 novel by Isabel Allende.

Alea Media founder Aitor Gabilondo will serve as showrunner on the series which is scheduled to go into production by the end of 2025.

The new title joins two of the biggest powerhouses of premium scripted drama in the Spanish-speaking world and powerful IP in a swing for broad audiences worldwide.

Founded by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrain, Academy Award winners for “A Fantastic Woman,” Fabula’s production credits take in movies “Jackie,” “Spencer” and “Maria,” all directed by Pablo Larraín.

Headed by Aitor Gabilondo, Alea Media is behind HBO Spanish smash hit “Patria” and Mediaset España’s “Wrong Side of the Tracks,” whose latest third season topped Netflix global non-English TV series charts earlier this year.

“A Long Petal of...

Argentine auteur Paula Hernández, helmer of “The Sleepwalkers” and “Las siamesas,” is attached to direct and co-write project series “Duarte. Evita behind the Icon,” produced by Buenos Aires-based powerhouse Kapow, the associate producer on Fabula-Fremantle hit drama “La Jauría.”

In development, and scheduled for a 2025 second-half shoot, “Duarte” is structured as a 5 episode, 60 minute series, based on the early youth of legendary Eva Duarte – better known as Evita – the second wife of Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón.

“Duarte” is one of the projects participating at the 2024 Co-Production and Financing Forum, taking place Oct. 1-2 in Madrid, as part of the fourth edition of Iberseries & Platino Industria event.

Produced by Kapow co-founders Agustín Sacanell, Lucas Rainelli and Diego Ventura, the company’s head of scripted development, the series aims to be a journey through Duarte’s personal story and, at the same time, through Argentina during those years which, just like Eva,...

Madrid-based Paz Lázaro of Amore Cine, at the Venice Film Festival for “Kill the Jockey” by Luis Ortega and “Quiet Life” by Alexandros Avranas, has boarded Sergio Castro San Martín’s “A Thousand Pieces” (“Mil pedazos”), which is currently shooting in Chile.

Amore Cine joins Argentina’s Bikini Films and Pan Contenidos, Spain’s Maluta Films and Castro San Martín’s Chile-based company Latente Films, co-founded with Eduardo Pizarro, in the co-production that wraps early October.

Road movie follows Isabel (43) and Miguel (53) who are getting ready for a vacation with their only daughter, Emilia (9). Miguel is the most excited, hoping this trip will be an opportunity to heal the rift with his wife. But for Isabel, there’s no way out of the crisis they’re facing. Emilia, excited about the adventure, captures the desert scenery with her Cybershot camera, but everything comes to a halt when a tragic accident occurs midway.

Principal photography is underway in Chile on Prime Video Original ‘The House of the Spirits,’ an 8-part series based on Chilean author Isabel Allende’s career-launching novel. Allende, Eva Longoria and her Hyphenate Media Group are executive producing the show.

The project had been in development at lead producer FilmNation Entertainment, which brought in Chilean filmmaking team Francisca Alegria and Fernanda Urrejola (“The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future”) to write and also showrun the series alongside seasoned local director/producer Andres Wood whose extensive credits include “Machuca” and series “News of a Kidnapping” and “Los 80.” Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrain’s Fabula is providing production services.

With over 70 million copies sold, “The House of the Spirits” is considered one of the most prominent novels of the 20th century. It was brought to the big screen in 1993 by Bille August with Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Antonio Banderas...

Fremantle has renewed its first-look deal with Fabula, the production company set up by Pablo Larraín and his producer brother Juan de Dios Larraín. According to the companies, the new partnership will see the two work more closely together, developing a slate of original dramas and films, which Fremantle’s international sales wing Fmi will distribute worldwide.

Under the original first-look partnership, signed in 2019, Fabula produced the award-winning series “La Jauría” and “Señorita 89” and the upcoming “Midnight Family” for Apple TV+, a 10-episode medical drama inspired by the award-winning documentary of the same name.

Fabula and Fremantle have just wrapped production on Sebabstián Lelio’s film musical “The Wave,” in partnership with Participant Media. “The Wave” tells the story of the mass protests that took place during the so-called “feminist May” in 2018, which created an iconic moment in the Chilean consciousness and reverberated across the region.

Later this year,...

Fremantle has renewed its first-look partnership with Chilean production company Fabula in a deal that will see the companies develop a slate of original dramas and films. Fremantle’s international sales wing, Fmi, will distribute the drama projects worldwide.

Fabula and Fremantle have just wrapped production on Sebabstián Lelio’s film musical The Wave, in partnership with Participant Media, which tells the story of the mass protests and university rallies that took place during Chile’s so-called “feminist May” in 2018.

Later this year they will launch Pablo Larraín’s Maria starring Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, produced alongside Fremantle and Germany’s Komplizen Film.

Miami– Gaumont USA, producer of “Narcos,” is powering up new series from both Oscar-winning “Birdman” co-writer Armando Bó and also Spain’s Manuel Martin Cuenca, director of Toronto winner “The Motive,” as well as multiple other talents. It is also readying it first movie slate.

Gaumont USA already co-produced the Bó showrun Amazon Original “El Presidente,” with Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Fabula and Argentine powerhouse Kapow, both partners on “La Jauría.”

News of new series projects comes as Gaumont USA is advancing on Lucía Puenzo’s near future android family saga “Futuro Desierto” (“Desolate Future”), part of a 2020 multi-project development pact with the Argentine writer-director.

Gaumont USA is currently developing titles with Jimena Montemayor (“Wind Traces”), Pedro Amorim (“The Dognapper”), Sebastian and Emiliano Zurita (“How to Survive Being Single”), Katina Medina Mora, Belen Macias (“Verano en Rojo”), among other top-level filmmakers. Other projects are from screenwriters Ruth García...

Fabula-Fremantle’s “Hot Sur,” The Mediapro Studio’s “El Mal” and “Two Nights in Lisbon,” from Portugal’s Hop Films and the U.K’s Heroes Films, look like potential standouts at next week’s Content Americas Copro Pitch 2024, one of its industry centerpieces.

These series projects will be joined by crime mystery thriller “Delito,” from Barcelona’s Grup Focus TV & Films, behind banner Amazon Original “Reina Roja,” “Iron Woman,” a tumultuous political saga from Brazil-based Jarsom Wayans, two high concept doc series – Argentina’s “Climate Migrants” and Brazil’s “Mystery of the Megafauna” – and bio doc feature “Farraquito, a Flamenco Story,” profiling the famed flamenco bailaor.

Shaping up as one of the biggest new titles to be brought onto the market at Content Americas, “Hot Sur” marks the latest from a fruitful 2019 multi-year first-look deal between Fremantle and Fabula, headed by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín, which has already yielded “La Jauría,...

The toxicity of patriarchal masculinity has become such a well-worn trope in pop culture (and especially in recent Colombian cinema) that it’s hard to remember its effects continue unabated in streets and households all over the world, and in that Latin American country specifically. And so, while Fabián Hernández’s central concerns in his simply-titled film, “A Man” (“Un Varón”), are all too familiar, his tale of a young man living in a shelter in the center of Bogotá who cannot escape the violence of the world of the streets around him, emerges nonetheless as a powerful portrait of the country’s inescapable machismo.

When Carlos (Dilan Felipe Ramírez Espitia) sits down to get a haircut, he has only one request: He wants one fit for a “varón.” Yet the English translation (“a man”) doesn’t quite capture the specificity of such a word in Colombian slang, for “varón...

“Dive” and “La Jauría” helmer Lucía Puenzo is set to direct gangster epic “The Gunwoman (Pepita’s Legend),” toplining and executive produced by Argentine star Luisana Lopilato, and inspired by the real-life story of Margarita Di Tullio, queen of its Mar del Plata underworld who became the most famous woman in Argentina’s criminal history.

Currently in pre-production, the movie is backed by one of the grandest alliances ever assembled to produce an Argentine feature film, thriller “The Gunwoman” (Pepita’s Legend)” being produced by a consortium led by Argentina’s Zeppelin Studio, headed by Lucas Jinkis. The alliance also takes in Historias Cinematográficas, Erik Barmack’s Wild Sheep Content, Yair Dori, Bar Rimoni, Javier Furgang, 7395 Media and Non Stop Studios.

From initial comments made by Puenzo, referring to “this gigantic story” and given the robust breadth of financing, “The Gunwoman” looks like one of the biggest movies without...

Mexico’s Mónica Lozano, producer of Alejandro González Iñarritu’s “Amores Perros” and Eugenio Derbéz’s “Instructions Not Included,” has boarded “Cepeda,” an envelope-pushing Mexico-set procedural, turning on a Mexican cop who’s an Indigenous woman and great at her job.

Development over the last two years has been financed by Acuña’s Chile-based Promocine. Put back, however, by the pandemic, the project is now set up at Lozano’s Mexico City production house Alebrije Producciones, one of Mexico’s most active forces in international production, behind Carlos Carrera’s Quirino Award winner “Ana y Bruno” and Fox’s “Run Coyote Run.”

“Cepeda” is written by Chile’s Julio Rojas, who has shot to global fame as creator of Podcast phenom “Caso 63.” Rojas also served as story editor on Lucía Puenzo’s “La Jauría,” and writer on Pablo Fendrik’s “El Refugio” and Matías Bize’s “The Life of Fish,...

Mexico’s Katina Medina Mora, director of Netflix hits ‘Emily in Paris’ and ‘Firefly Lane’ and Apple TV+ standout “Swagger,” is teaming with Chile’s Julio Rojas, creator of podcast phenom “Caso 63,” to direct and co-write with Rojas “Freeland.”

Medina Mora, Rojas and “Freeland” producer Nestor Hernández, a former Sony and HBO development exec for Latin America, will attend the San Sebastian Film Festival, which kicks off on Sept. 22, to present the project.

Longtime MadAvenue PR director Eva Herrero will also serve as an executive producer on the film.

One of the most ambitious movies now in the works from Latin America and Spain, “Freeland” is set in America’s Midwest, and combines a teen first love romantic drama, a building thriller propulsion and the kind of anticipatory near future science fiction for which Rojas is hailed as a master.

Sparking a successful U.S. podcast remake starring Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac,...

Chile’s Latente Films is teaming with Argentine outfit HD Argentina and Germany’s Orinokia to produce Chilean writer-director Sergio Castro San Martin’s project “Mil pedazos” (“A Thousand Pieces”), selected for the San Sebastian Festival’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum this September.

A creator and co-director of TV series such as Amazon Original “La Jauria” and Disney+’s “Llévame al cielo” – both produced by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Fábula – Castro San Martín’s feature debut, “The Mud Woman,” had its world premiere at the 2015 Berlinale.

“A Thousand Pieces” marks Castro San Martín’s return to the San Sebastian co-production forum after attending in the 2017 edition with “The Saddest Goal.”

In development, and scheduled to shoot first half 2024 in the Chilean region of Coquimbo, “A Thousand Pieces” is produced from Chile by Eduardo Pizarro at Latente, a company based in La Serena, Coquimbo’s capital city, alongside...

Updated: Ron Leshem, creator of the original Israeli “Euphoria” and an exec producer on its U.S. version, has been added to Iberseries & Platino Industria’s conference strand – signalling a larger paradigm pivot at one of the biggest film-tv events in the Spanish-speaking world as it expands to encompass an ever more globalized international TV scene.

Fresh off a huge hit on Israel’s Reshet 13 for Series Mania buzz title “Red Skies,” at Iberseries, Leshem, who co-created “Valley of Tears” and “No Man’s Land,” joins some of the most influential voices on the Spanish-speaking film-tv and beyond such as former Netflix exec Erik Barmack at Wild Sheep Content, Ran Tellem at The Mediapro Studio and Axel Kuschevatzky at Infinity Hill. Wild Sheep has a production alliance with Tms.

At Netflix, Barmack oversaw Netflix’s first-ever push into fully foreign-language content beginning with Mexico’s “Club of Crows” and Brazil’s...

Unfolding alongside Chile’s Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic), Sanfic Industria runs August 20-26, promising a busy schedule that includes Iberoamerican Works in Progress (Wip) and a variety of labs that encompass fiction, documentaries, genre films, sustainable development, series, women producers’ projects, Xr etc. Some of the 11 sections will be in a hybrid or online format.

At its July 19 press conference, Sanfic Industria head Gabriela Sandoval will highlight the premiere of two hotly anticipated Chilean series that will screen at the annual event.

Both shows are expected to debut later this year on Chilean television before passing on to streaming platforms. Recipients of the Chilean National Television fund, both deal with women’s themes in distinct genres.

“We are very excited at Sanfic Industria to premiere these two series for the public. “Poemas Malditos” (“Cursed Poems”) will be shown in its entirety with all four episodes and “Cecilia la Incomparable...

The Larraín brothers’ indie company Fábula, producer of Oscar winning “A Fantastic Woman,” is preparing tragi-comic docudrama “Los guardaespaldas de Superman” (“Superman’s Bodyguards”).

The four-episode, half-hour crime-adventure series, directed by Sebastián Radic (“Instrucciones para Mi Funeral”) and scripted by Rodrigo Bastidas and Rodrigo Muñoz, focuses on a trip Christopher Reeve’s made to Chile in 1987, under Pinochet’s dictatorship, to save the lives of 78 people under death threat.

“Superman’s Bodyguards” is one of the five projects selected to form part of Pitch Docudrama, a showcase at Conecta Fiction 2023 edition, which takes place June 26-29 in Toledo, the capital of Spain’s Castilla-La Mancha, just south of Madrid.

At Toledo, Fabula execs will be looking for co-production partners to strengthen the possiblility of shooting outside Chile. Also, they will seek to get the word out to the market that Fabula is producing documentary series content.

“The tragicomedy appeals to universal values,...

Amanda Nell Eu’s debut feature wins sidebar’s €10,000 grand prize.

Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu’s art horror Tiger Stripes won the top €10,000 grand prize of the 62nd edition of Cannes’ Critics Week sidebar.

Nell Eu’s debut feature explores themes of metamorphosis and rebellion in her film about a teenage girl whose body begins to morph at an alarming rate as she learns to embrace her true self. The film is a multi-territory co-production between Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Indonesia and Qatar.

Screen’s review said the film “truly growls in its depiction of the...

Chile’s preeminent scribe Julio Rojas, whose serial podcast “Case 63” was Spotify’s most popular podcast in Latin America and was adapted into English with Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac starring, is writing his first romcom after the global success of “Case 63.”

Titled “Detras de ti”, the upcoming project is being co-produced by Spain’s EvaFilms and David Naranjo’s Pris & Batty, best known for its hit comedies “8 apellidos vascos,” “8 apellidos catalanes” and “Toc toc.”

“Ever since I listened to ‘Case 63,’ I was very keen to work with Julio and bring his work to the big screen,” said Eva Cebrián of EvaFilms, adding: “Julio is an indisputable storyteller who has most understood the audio format, given his deep experience as a screenwriter.”

While Rojas has a predilection for sci-fi projects, Cebrián pointed out that romance was very much intrinsic to his work. “Detras de ti” will be a departure for Rojas,...

Cannes Critics’ Week Artistic Director Ava Cahen has unveiled the line-up for the 62nd edition of the parallel sidebar focused on first and second films, running May 17 to 25.

The compact selection will showcase 11 features, seven in Competition, and four as Special Screenings. Full details of the line-up can be found here. The short film line-up will be announced in the coming days.

This is Cahen’s second Selection as Artistic Director after a successful inaugural year in the role in 2022, topped by award-winning titles Aftersun, Alma Viva, Dalva and La Jauria.

Deadline talked to Cahen about the challenges of getting her second Selection over the line as well as some of the themes and trends to have emerged in the process.

Deadline: It’s your second Selection as Artistic Director after your well-received inaugural 2022 line-up. Did you find the process more difficult or easier this year?

Ava Cahen: It was different,...

Cannes Critics’ Week, a parallel film festival sidebar selected by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, has unveiled its 2023 selection of 11 features, including seven competition titles and four special screenings.

The section focuses on first and second features from emerging directors. The 62nd edition runs alongside the main Cannes festival May 17-25.

This year’s competition lineup includes two Asian horror movies: the Korean horror film Sleep (Jam) from first-time director, and former Bong Joon Ho assistant, Jason Yu, and Tiger Stripes from Malaysian director Amanda Eu. The former features Parasite star Lee Sun-kyun and Train to Busan‘s Jung Yu-mi as newlyweds whose lives descend into horror triggered by the husband’s strange behavior while asleep. Tiger Stripes, which draws inspiration from Southeast Asian folklore, is a coming-of-age tale about a 12-year-old girl whose body starts to change in alarming and horrifying ways as she hits puberty.

Physical changes...

Audrey Diwan, director of the 2021 Venice Golden Lion winner “Happening,” has been named jury president of the 62nd annual Critics Week.

The jury members include Portuguese director of photography Rui Poças; German actor, choreographer and dancer Franz Rogowski (“A Hidden Life”); Indian journalist, curator and Berlinale programming advisor Meenakshi Shedde; and Sundance programming director Kim Yutani.

The Critics Week sidebar runs parallel to the Cannes Film Festival, and focuses on first and second films. Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (“The Man who Sold his Skin”) served as last year’s jury president.

Diwan, a former journalist, made her debut with “Losing It” in 2019. Two years later, the filmmaker took home the Venice Film Festival’s top prize for her sophomore feature, the searing 2021 abortion drama “Happening,” which was snapped up for distribution by IFC Films. She became only the second woman (after 2020’s “Nomadland” helmer Chloe Zhao) to win the Golden Lion since Agnès Varda,...

In a decade from now, we might be looking at all the offerings at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and how Charlotte Well’s masterwork debut Aftersun was programmed (it won the inaugural Prix French Touch du Jury prize) at the “other end” of the Croisette. Not a bad legacy for Critics’ Week topper Ava Cahen who moves into year number two of her mandate. After programming a sturdy first edition, we expect just as many Euro items with an uptick of emerging female filmmaker talents.

In our predictions for all sections in Cannes, La Semaine de la Critique is always the toughest nut to crack with several under-the-radar gem selections (especially those coming from the South America and Asia continents).…...

Click here to read the full article.

Warner Bros. Discovery has taken the axe to its European staff, chopping 29 jobs in Europe, among them top programming positions, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed Thursday.

Among the executives on the way out are Johnathan Young, vp, original programming and production at HBO Max Emea (Europe, Middle East and Africa); Christian Wikander, vp and commissioning editor of original programming for the Nordic region; and Annelies Sitvast, who heads up the studios’ unscripted original programming slate. Mia Edde, who joined Wbd last year to run content acquisitions for Turkey, has already left.

The rest of the 29 employees, all of whom will be leaving Wbd over the next 15 months, come from these executives’ teams.

The cuts were expected following the merger of Discovery and Warner Bros. and the announcement by studio boss David Zaslav that the company was looking to find 3 billion in savings across its global business.

Exclusive: Warner Bros. Discovery is letting go of 29 staff in Europe, including key programming execs, as it moves to phase out HBO Max European originals and shift towards a new local commissioning model, Deadline can reveal.

Among the top level execs leaving the business are HBO Max Emea VP Original Programming and Production Cee Johnathan Young; VP and Commissioning Editor of Original Programming, Nordics Christian Wikander; and Head of Unscripted Original Production Annelies Sitvast. Mia Edde, who joined last year as Executive Director, Content Acquisitions in Turkey has already left.

In total, 29 will depart over the next 15 months, with the other departures coming from the teams of the exiting executives.

Deadline understands Wbd will continue to invest in local commissions and acquisitions in Europe, but that original programming responsibilities will now be handled by the company’s local linear and streaming teams, and no commissions will be made purely for streaming.

The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced the international arm of its festival. Taking place September 8 through 18, TIFF previously unveiled Sally El Hosaini’s opening night film “The Swimmers” as well as Special Presentations including the world premieres of Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans,” Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” and Nicholas Stoller’s “Bros.”

“The Woman King,” “Catherine Called Birdy,” “The Menu,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “My Policeman” additionally debut at the festival.

Now, the Contemporary World Cinema slate has been announced for 2022 TIFF. The lineup includes features from more than 50 countries spanning the globe. The respective world premieres for “Bones of Crows” and “The Swearing Jar” are among programming highlights, as well as the North American premieres for Koji Fukada’s “Love Life” and Jerzy Skolimowski’s “Eo.”

“We are so proud of the TIFF Docs and Contemporary World Cinema programs,” Anita Lee, chief programming officer,...

Juan Pablo González‘s Sundance winning Dos Estaciones, Manuela Martelli‘s Quinzaine section winning 1976, Andrés Ramírez Pulido‘s Critics’ Week winner La Jauría, Carolina Markowicz‘s Platform (TIFF) competing Charcoal and Ana Cristina Barragán‘s Octupus Skin are all part of the dozen films selected for the Horizontes Latinos line-up at the 2022 San Sebastian International Film Festival. Clearly a section filled with 2022 film festival riches, the section will open with Patricio Guzmán’s My Imaginary Country – a Cannes entry that Icarus Films will premiere next month.

It’s worth noting that Barragán’s Octopus Skin (aka La Piel Pulpo) (also a Guadalajara Film Festival post prod fund winner) is one of four films featured in this year’s Horizontes line-up that screened in last year’s Wip Latam.…...

Manuela Martelli’s 1976 and documentary My Imaginary Country, both Chilean titles, are among the line-up

Manuela Martelli’s 1976 and documentary My Imaginary Country, both Chilean titles, are among the 12 films selected for the Horizontes Latinos section of the 70th edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (September 16-24).

Scroll down for full line-up

Martelli’s drama premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection earlier this year and recently picked up the best first feature film award at Jerusalem. The film follows a middle-class woman re-evaluating her beliefs when she’s asked to secretly take care of an injured man. Luxbox are handling sales.

The festival runs July 21-31.

Alexandru Belc’s Metronom has picked up the award for best international film at the 39th edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival (Jff) this week.

The Romanian film was selected from 11 international titles, which included Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave and Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning. It centres around a teenage couple spending their last few days together in 1972. Belc also won the best director award when the film played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard selection earlier this year.

Berlinale managing director Mariette Rissenbeek, Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes and Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson comprised the jury.

In an early scene in Episode One of Pablo Fendrik’s “The Shelter” which is suffused in oneiric chromatic blue, Emilia, a little girl in bed at night, spies a figure down a corridor who looks like her dead older sister, Daniela.

Following her to a barn door, Emilia enters to discover its chicken slaughtered as a huge light flares in the night sky outside. Emilia wakes up. Next days, the chicken are discovered slaughtered in the barn.

Bowing on Pantaya and Starzplay on June 23, six-hour sci-fi series “The Shelter” (“El refugio”) is the first major premium sci-fi TV series from Latin America. That tells. Classic sci-fi flowered after the unbelievable horror of World War II, showing humankind defeating an alien enemy through courage and the force of reason.

What could a Latin American sci-fi series look like 75 years later? “The Shelter” gives one answer, which having grabbed the viewer in early stretches,...

Fabula-Fremantle’s “Santa Maria,” Leticia Dolera’s “Puberty” and “Fata Morgana,” a Western thriller executive produced by Béla Tarr, all feature at this year’s vastly expanded Conecta Fiction & Entertainment.

In further news announced Monday, Conecta Fiction will also stage the European premiere of Star Plus’ “Santa Evita,” executive produced by Salma Hayek Pinault and José Tamez, starring Natalia Oreiro, Ernesto Alterio, Darío Grandinetti and one of Disney’s most anticipated titles Spanish-language titles.

“Santa Evita” tells the true events-based and extraordinary story of the odyssey of Argentine First Lady Eva Perón’s embalmed body over three decades, her elevation to near sainthood saying much about Argentina and Latin America at large.

A panel discussion will be lead by the key cast, directors Rodrigo García and Alejandro Maci and the executives who led its production – Mariana Pérez, VP, development and production, Twdc Latin America, and Leonardo Aranguibel, VP, production, Twdc Latin America.

Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrain’s Chile-headquartered Fabula and Fremantle have tapped Argentina’s Eduardo Sacheri, co-writer of the Oscar-winning “The Secret in Their Eyes,” to write “Santa María,” an eight-part high-end series.

Part of global producer-distributor Fremantle’s multi-year first look deal with Fabula, Fremantle will co-produce “Santa María” and handle its international distribution.

Now in development, “Santa María” is set to be presented at this month’s Conecta Fiction & Entertainment in its highly select High-End section of five projects, weighing in as one of Conecta Fiction’s 31 titles which is sure to fire up most interest at the TV forum.

An expansion of narrative reach for Fabula in line with its Prime Video series “El Presidente,” “Santa Maria” will be produced out of Fabula’s Mexico production beachhead. It turns on a Spanish priest, a nun sent by the Vatican and a Cuban detective who are faced...

Triangle of Sadness.Below you will find an index of our coverage from the Cannes Film Festival, Directors' Fortnight, and Critics' Week in 2022, as well as our favorite films.Awardstop 101. Pacifiction (Albert Serra)2. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)3. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg)4. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor) & One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)6. Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund)7. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)8. Stars at Noon (Claire Denis)9. Eo (Jerzy Skolimowski)10. Diary of a Fleeting Affair (Emmanuel Mouret)(Poll contributors: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal, Jordan Cronk, Flavia Dima, Daniel Fairfax, Lawrence Garcia, Leonardo Goi, Daniel Kasman, Łukasz Mańkowski, Caitlin Quinlan, Savina Petkova)Correspondences#1 Daniel Kasman previews the festival | Read#2 Leonardo Goi on Scarlet (Pietro Marcello), Alma Viva (Cristèle Alves Meira), God's Creatures (Saela Davis & Anna Rose Holmer) | Read#3 Lawrence Garcia on The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache), Corsage (Marie Kreutzer), One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve) | Read...

Notebook is covering the Cannes Film Festival with an ongoing correspondence between critics Leonardo Goi and Lawrence Garcia, and editor Daniel Kasman.La Jauría.Dear Danny and Lawrence, By the time you’ll read this, the Croisette will be a distant place and a faraway memory. I’m writing my last dispatch from a press room that’s gearing up for the awards ceremony; another couple of hours and it’ll be crammed with people cheering, booing, and shouting, a pandemonium in the vein of Triangle of Sadness. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of final thoughts to share tomorrow, Lawrence; for my part, all I’ll say is that the 75th Cannes Film Festival struck me as a relatively underwhelming affair, especially when compared to more ebullient recent editions. The official competition proved particularly disappointing. There are films I look forward to re-watching as soon as possible (Cronenberg...

As the Cannes Film Festival begins to wind down to its finale on Saturday night, “La Jauria” from Colombian director Andres Ramirez Pulido took the Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the festival’s sidebar focused on first and second feature films.

“La Jauria” centers on Eliú, a country boy, who is incarcerated́ in an experimental minors’ center in the heart of the Colombian tropical forest, for a crime he committed with his friend El Mono. Every day, the teenagers perform strenuous manual labour and intense group therapy. One day, El Mono is transferred to the same center and brings with him a past that Eliú is trying to get away from.

The film, which comes from Colombia, also took the the Sacd prize.

“War Pony” wins Palm Dog Award

Brit the Silver Poodle, who stars in Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s indigenous drama “War Pony,” took home the coveted Palm Dog collar,...

Afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here. Cannes is wrapping and we have the very latest from the Croisette, plus a hell of a lot more in this week’s deep dive. Read on.

Au Revoir, Cannes

Cautious optimism: Diana Lodderhose here, back with week two of our Cannes roundup. For most, this year’s festival will be remembered as a hopeful one, filled with optimism for the business in a post-pandemic world. In the run up to the event, a record number of packages were announced – most of which were broken here at Deadline – but deal-making is seemingly not as fast-paced as one might expect, suggesting some cautious optimism amongst buyers. Andreas Wiseman noted in his halfway temperature check of the festival that there are some record-asking prices being offered up for buyers this year, such as a German ask for Lionsgate’s Hunger Games prequel coming in at a whopping 30M.

Denis is presenting her second feature of 2022, ‘Stars At Noon’.

Making films is harder for women than for men, according to French director Claire Denis at Cannes today.

“I had no choice [in being a woman director], as I was a woman since my birth,” said Denis, speaking at the press conference for her Competition title Stars At Noon. “It’s much better now. It’s really hard for men and women to do movies; it’s harder for women.

“But women are tough – it’s important to be tough when making films,” continued the director. “They have a sort of obstinance that makes them...

On the heels of Critics’ Prize wins for Andres Ramirez Pulido’s “La Jauria,” Variety can reveal an exclusive clip from the Colombian film.

The pic on Wednesday won the Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar dedicated to first and second features. It also picked up the Sacd prize.

“La Jauria” centers on Eliu, a country boy, who is incarcerated in an experimental young offenders institution, deep in the heart of the Colombian tropical forest, for a crime he committed with his friend El Mono.

Every day, the teenagers perform hard manual labor and endure intense group therapy, under the menacing gaze of the camp guard Godoy. One day, El Mono is transferred to the same centre and with him comes the past that Eliu is trying to escape.

The film is being sold globally by Pyramide International.

Ramirez Pulido previously directed the short films “El Edén” and “Damiana,...

The Pack is set in an experimental centre for youngsters in the Colombian tropical forest Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Critics' Week As the Cannes Film Festival starts gearing up for the main awards ceremony on Saturday prizes and awards from other sections of the festival have started to emerge.

The Jury of the 61st Critics’ Week, presided over by the director Kaouther Ben Hania, have awarded the Grand Prize to The Pack (La Jauría) by Andrés Ramírez Pulido, set in an experimental centre for minors in the Colombian tropical forest and the director’s debut feature.

New York-based Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells has won the French Touch Prize of the Jury to Aftersun, which looks back at a father-daughter holiday at a Turkish resort in the 1990s and stars Paul Mescal.

Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio in Critics' Week winner Aftersun by Charlotte Well Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Critics' Week...

Andres Ramirez Pulido’s “La Jauria” won the Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar dedicated to first and second features. The Colombian film also won the Sacd prize.

The feature debut follows Eliú, a country boy who is wrongly accused of a crime and incarcerated in an experimental rehabilitation center for tough boys in the heart of the Colombian tropical forest.

Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun,” which stars “Normal People” actor Paul Mescal, won the French Touch Prize of the Jury. The bittersweet drama revolves around a father and daughter who spend a summer holiday in a Turkish resort.

Emmanuelle Nicot’s “Love According To Dalva,” meanwhile, won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for Zelda Samson. “Love According to Dalva” is a poignant drama about a 12-year-old girl growing up in foster care, alongside social workers and other children.

The Gan Foundation Award for Distribution went to Urban Distribution,...

UK director Charlotte Well’s buzzed-about debut Aftersun also features among the prize-winners.

Colombian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido’s jungle-set, coming-of-age drama The Pack (La Jauria) has scooped the top €10,000 grand prix of the 61st edition of Cannes Critics’ Week.

The film revolves around a boy who is sent to an experimental juvenile correction centre in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he commits a crime.

The Colombia-France co-production is Pulido’s first feature after a number of well-travelled shorts including Damiana which premiered in Competition in Cannes in 2017 and El Edén which played in the Berlinale in 2018.

Tunisian...

UK director Charlotte Well’s buzzed-about debut Aftersun also features among the prize-winners.

Columbian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido’s jungle-set, coming-of-age drama The Pack (La Jauria) has scooped the top €10,000 grand prix of the 61st edition of Cannes Critics’ Week.

The film revolves around a boy who is sent to an experimental juvenile correction centre in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he commits a crime.

The Colombia-France co-production is Pulido’s first feature after a number of well-travelled shorts including Damiana which premiered in Competition in Cannes in 2017 and El Edén which played in the Berlinale in 2018.

Tunisian...

As the Cannes Film Festival rolls towards its conclusion on Saturday night, sidebar Critics’ Week doled out its awards this evening with the Grand Prize going to Andres Ramirez Pulido’s La Jauria. Critics’ Week is devoted to first and second features, and this is Pulido’s debut meaning the film is also eligible for the Camera d’Or which will be announced on Saturday during the fest’s main closing ceremony.

La Jauria took two gongs tonight in Critics’ Week, also scoring the Sacd Prize. The story centers on Eliú, a country boy, who is incarcerated́ in an experimental minors’ center in the heart of the Colombian tropical forest, for a crime he committed with his friend El Mono. Every day, the teenagers perform strenuous manual labor and intense group therapy. One day, El Mono is transferred to the same center and brings with him a past that Eliú is trying to escape.

Beasts in the Jungle: Pulido Suffers the Children in Sinister Debut

At the bizarre intersection of a walkabout and a penal colony is La Jauría (The Pack), the debut from Colombian director Andres Ramirez Pulido. A hard labor camp doubling as group therapy for wayward male teens outside Bogota is an experiment ripe for failure in this ominous exercise focusing on two friends involved in an accidental murder. As usual, good intentions pave the way to chaos and eventual depravity, aided by the simmering, sweltering anxiety of a tropical jungle.

A strong ensemble of first time actors bolster two lead performers whose characters seem fated to ruin, and there’s a sweaty, brooding ambience suggesting a William Goldman styled dystopia hurtling toward implosion.…...

Out in the jungle, no one can hear you dragging a body around. Mind you, nobody notices much what you do in the city, either. Colombian director Andres Ramirez Pulido’s debut feature, La Jauria, screening in Critics’ Week at Cannes, opens with a grab-bag of images familiar from current Latin American cinema — a couple of teenage boys in neon-lit urban darkness, some elaborate sniffing and nose-wiping, a bike that shouts “stolen” as they careen down a highway — but soon detours into stranger and much more remote territory. One thing you can be sure of: wherever they are, these boys are going to be in trouble.

Where they are, once that opening sequence has set a scene that will immediately be ripped from beneath our feet, is mysterious. Eliu (Jhojan Estiven Jiminez) previously seen under a streetlight with a bottle in his hand, is one of a gang working around a decrepit hacienda,...

Each project will receive €10,000 in funding.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) has selected 10 projects, all from female filmmakers, for its 2022 Script and Project Development Support scheme.

Each of the 10 projects receives a grant of €10,000 to be spent on development.

The selection includes Iranian filmmaker Rakhshan Banietemad, whose previous flm Tales picked up best screenplay at Venice Film festival in 2014, and Tamar Shavgulidze, the Georgian director of Comets which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019.

Two Brazilian projects, Everlane Moraes’ The Secret Of Sikán and Maíra Bühler’s The Marriage, are featured and will...

Each project will receive €10,000 in funding.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) has selected 10 projects, all from female filmmakers, for its 2022 Script and Project Development Support scheme.

Each of the 10 projects receives a grant of €10,000 to be spent on development.

The selection includes Iranian filmmaker Rakhshan Banietemad, whose previous flm Tales picked up best screenplay at Venice Film festival in 2014, and Tamar Shavgulidze, the Georgian director of Comets which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019.

Two Brazilian projects, Everlane Moraes’ The Secret Of Sikán and Maíra Bühler’s The Marriage, are featured and will...

At last count, Pyramide is selling the most films (6) which are showing in the Festival and its satellites. Four are in the Official Selections of the Cannes International Film Festival (Cannes Ff Premiere, Cannes Ff Special Screening, and Cannes Ff Un Certain Regard); one is in Critics’ Week / La Semaine de la critique and one is in Directors’ Fortnight/ Quinzaine des realisateurs.

Throughout the festival, we will watch not only their films to report on, but will keep an eye on the sales to some 60 international territories.

Pyramide International is part of the Pyramide Group which is also a domestic distribution company in France (Pyramide Distribution) and a French production company (Pyramide Productions). The company was founded in 1989 by Claudie Cheval, Fabienne Vonier, Francis Boespflug, Louis Malle and Michel Seydoux. Claudie also founded Ace which is still going strong today. (see current blog on Ace in Cannes).

Claudie brought Eric Lagesse into Pyramide International as a young man and, typically for everyone who is involved with Pyramide, he continues to work with them today as their CEO. Claudie was one of the most wonderful, warm and creative women in the business and unfortunately for us all, she died much too soon, on July 30, 1999 at age 48. Claudie set a tone of willing cooperation and support among the French film business colleagues. One can see at a glance when entering the Unifrance umbrella offices how the French international sales agents at the markets cooperate with each other. When reading how films in the Cannes Film Festival and the sidebars seem to be apportioned out to them when the titles are announced and there is no international sales agent attached yet, one surmises that there is a special kind of sharing going on among them.

Pyramide is one of the oldest and most respected of some 450 interntional sales agents. Last year they represented one of my favorite films of the festival, the Critics’ Week film A Tale of Love and Desire. Please read my blog about it here. The French government support of film as a cultural heritage allows the French sales agents to serve as the best examples of agents for the 7th Art to all other countries. As a world sales agent, Pyramide International has deliberately focused on the “film d’auteur” and promotes international sales of young directors.

As distributors in France itself as well as international sales agents, they also can boast of one of the top acquisitions executive in the business, Christine Ravet buys the films the French public lines up to see at their theaters as well as those that are sold internationally.

This year’s Cannes titles are described here:

Cannes Ff Premiere Dodo directed by Panos H. Koutras is a coproduction of Greece, France, and Belgium.

Dodo directed by Panos H. Koutras

Cannes Ff Special Screenings My Imaginary Country/ Mi país imaginario directed by Patricio Guzmán is a production of Chile. Sales have already been made for UK and Ireland to New Wave; Benelux to Cineart; Italy to I Wonder, Ex-Yugo to Discovery.

My Imaginary Country/ Mi país imaginario directed by Patricio Guzmán

Cannes Ff Un Certain Regard Metronom is eligible for the Camera d’Or as it is the third film, but the first fiction feature of director Alexandru Belc of Romania.

Metronom is eligible for the Camera d’Or as it is the third film, but first fiction feature of director Alexandru Belc

Cannes Ff Un Certain Regard The Worst Ones/Les pires is also eligible for the Camera d’Or. It is directed by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret of France.

Directors’ Fortnight Harkis/ Les Harkis directed by Philippe Faucon of France tells the story set during the Algerian War 1954–1962, when impoverished young Algerian men known as “Harkis” volunteered to join the French Army.

Critics’ Week in Competition The Pack/ La jauría directed by Colombian Andrés Ramírez Pulido is a coproduction of Colombia and France. It tells of a country boy, Eliú, incarcerated́ in an experimental juvenile correction center in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he committed a crime with his friend El Mono. Ordered to perform manual labour and undergo intensive group therapy, Eliú discovers that El Mono has been transferred to the same center, bringing with him a past that Eliú is trying to escape.Pulido’s feature directorial debut follows a distinguished track record in short films that saw Damiana premiere in Competition in Cannes in 2017 a year after El Edén played in the Berlinale.

And in the Marche: I Love Greece. And who doesn’t?...

The feature documentary has been picked up by Netflix and Sky.

UK production outfit Salon Pictures has commenced principal photography on Lorna Tucker’s feature documentary Call Me Kate, chronicling the life of US actress Katharine ‘Kate’ Hepburn.

The documentary combines new and archive footage, with the shoot taking place in the US in Connecticut and New York, and in London.

London-based Abacus Media Rights is handling worldwide sales with financing from Head Gear Films. Abacus has taken over from Embankment, which initially boarded sales in 2020.

The film has pre-sold to Netflix for the US and Canada, Sky in the...

Feature directorial debutant Andrés Ramírez Pulido attended Croisette with short film Damiana in 2017.

In the run-up to Cannes Paris-based Pyramide International has boarded sales on Cannes Critics’ Week selection The Pack (La Jauria) from Colombian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido.

The Colombia-France co-production marks Pulido’s feature directorial debut after a distinguished track record in short films that saw Damiana premiere in Competition in Cannes in 2017 a year after El Edén played in the Berlinale.

The film centres on Eliú, a country boy incarcerated́ in an experimental juvenile correction centre in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he committed a...