Focus Features Releases Trailer for Penelope Cruz & Javier Bardem’s “Everybody Knows”

Posted on November 17, 2018 by Tom Castaneda

Penélope Cruz is a mother in despair…

Focus Features has released a trailer for Everybody Knows, a Spanish-language film starring the 44-year-old Spanish actress and her actor-husband Javier Bardem.

The film, Asghar Farhadi’s follow-up to his Oscar winner The Salesman, the film centers on Laura (Cruz) on her travels from Argentina to her small hometown in Spain for her sister’s wedding, bringing her two children with her. Amid the joyful reunion and festivities, the eldest daughter is abducted. In the tense days that follow, various family and community tensions surface and deeply hidden secrets are revealed. Ricardo Darín co-stars.

Focus Features scored a rights deal in May after the film had its world premiere as the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival. It now will have a platform release beginning February 8.

Focus Features to Release Penelope Cruz & Javier Bardem’s “Everybody Knows” in February

Posted on September 30, 2018 by Tom Castaneda

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem will have a thrilling Valentine’s month…

Focus Features has set a February 8 limited release date for Everybody Knows, Asghar Farhadi’s psychological thriller starring the 44-year-old Spanish actress and her 49-year-old Spanish actor husband.

The film, which also stars Ricardo Darín, opened the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Written and directed by Farhadi, the Spanish-language film first will get a brief Oscar-qualifying run starting on November 30.

It follows Laura (Cruz) on her travels with her two kids from Argentina to her small hometown in Spain for her sister’s wedding. Amid the joyful reunion and festivities, the eldest daughter is abducted. In the tense days that follow, various family and community tensions surface and deeply hidden secrets are revealed.

At the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, Farhadi talked about his inspiration for the movie. “It comes from a trip I had to Spain with my family 15 years ago, he said. “My daughter was very small at that time, and she saw photos of a girl on the wall in the street. She asked my interpreter, ‘Who is she?’ and he explained to us that there had been a kidnapping. My daughter was afraid for the whole trip. And from that time, I was thinking about this situation, in which a family would lose one member. … It was with me for a long time.”

Ismael Cruz Córdova to Star in the Period Drama “Mary, Queen of Scots”

Posted on August 23, 2017 by Tom Castaneda

Great Scots! Ismael Cruz Córdova has landed a new role…

The 30-year-old Puerto Rican actor has joined the cast of Working Title and Focus Features’ period drama Mary, Queen of Scots.

Josie Rourke is directing the film from a script by Beau Willimon, with Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie starring.

The story explores the turbulent life of the charismatic Mary Stuart (Ronan), Queen of France at 16 and widow at 18 who defies pressure to remarry. Instead, she returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne, but Scotland and England fall under the rule of the compelling Elizabeth I.

Cordova will play the role of Rizzio, Mary’s confidant.

Production is underway in England and Scotland.

Cordova recently had a standout performance as the troubled boxer Hector Campos on Season 4 of Showtime’s Ray Donovan. He recently wrapped his role as the male lead opposite Gina Rodriguez in the Catherine Hardwicke-helmed remake Miss Bala and also appeared in Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Focus Features to Release Bayona’s “A Monster Calls” in October

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

It looks like J.A. Bayona will have a Monster October…

Focus Features will release the 41-year-old Spanish filmmaker’s fantasy drama A Monster Calls on October 21, one week later than originally planned.

Written by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls follows a boy who seeks the help of a tree monster so that he can cope with his single mother’s terminal disease. The monster tells him stories to help him cope with his life, though he has difficulty understanding the point of the bizarre tales. The boy doesn’t get along with his grandmother, which is unfortunate because he will have to live with her when his mother passes away.

Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Toby Kebbell, Lewis MacDougall and Liam Neeson star.

Bayona’s previous feature The Impossible played during awards season 2012 and focused on a family in peril during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand.

Thorne Signs with Creative Artists Agency (CAA)

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Bella Thorne is getting Creative…

The 18-year-old half Cuban American actress/singer and former Disney Channel star has signed with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

The move comes as Thorne, who has been branching out fast into feature films as both an actress and producer, just finished filming Midnight Sun opposite Patrick Schwarzenegger, Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween and The Babysitter with Robbie Amell and directed by McG.

On the TV side, her Freeform pilot Famous in Love, adapted by Marlene King, has landed a series order.

Her recent credits include the SXSW pic Shovel Buddies, which she also produced, and Thorne now is in production on a second Awesomeness Films movie, You Get Me, in which she will also star and produce. She is voicing a role in Focus Features’ animated Ratchet and Clank and over the summer will begin production on Xavier Dolan’s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.

She had been repped by WME.

Thorne has 11.3 million Instagram followers, 9.9 million Facebook fans and 6.3 million Twitter followers. She also has a novel, Autumn Falls, and another, Autumn’s Kiss, coming in the fall.

Pathé to Release Bonham Carter’s “Suffragette” in October

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Tom Castaneda

Helena Bonham Carter is bringing the historic fight for women’s voting rights to the big screen in the United Kingdom…

Pathé has announced plans to release Suffragette, starring the 48-year-old part-Spanish actress, on October 30 in the UK.

From director Sarah Gavron, the drama also stars Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep. Focus Features has set Suffragette for a domestic awards season release on October 23.

The film tracks the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement as they fought for the right to vote in Britain. Radicalized and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality. The pic centers on Maud (Mulligan), a working wife and mother who decides she must fight for her dignity both at home and in her workplace.

With the UK’s General Election coming up on May 7, and given that nine million women failed to vote in the 2010 election, there is a major campaign under way in Britain to get women to register by the April 20 deadline. In support of the movement, Pathé has released a new teaser trailer.

“Never give up the fight,” Streep’s Emmeline Pankhurst tells Mulligan’s Maud.

Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff and Ben Whishaw also star. Abi Morgan wrote the script.

Trailer Released for the Cuesta-Directed “Kill the Messenger,” Starring Jeremy Renner

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Michael Cuesta is ready to kill the messenger…

The first trailer for Jeremy Renner‘s Kill the Messenger, helmed by the 50-year-old television and film director, borrows the visual style, tone and ripped-from-the-headlines subject material of American Hustle.

Kill the Messenger is a dramatization of journalist Gary Webb‘s investigation into a CIA conspiracy in Nicaragua that led to a series of articles titled Dark Alliance for The San Jose Mercury News that caused a firestorm of controversy.

“Despite warnings from drug kingpins and CIA operatives to stop his investigation, Webb keeps digging to uncover a conspiracy with explosive implications,” the film’s synopsis reads.

The cast also features Paz Vega, Rosemarie DeWitt and Ray Liotta

The Focus Features biopic was written by Parkland scribe Peter Landesman based on Nick Schou‘s book Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb.

The film is set for U.S. release in October.

Focus Features to Release the Bayona-Directed “A Monster Calls” In October 2016

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona’s Monster project will call on American audiences in October 2016…

Focus Features has announced plans to release A Monster Calls, the film directed by the 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, on October 14, 2016.

Based on the award-winning children’s fantasy novel by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls centers on a young boy who attempts to deal with his mother’s illness and school bullies by escaping into a fantastical world of monsters and fairy tales.

Ness wrote the novel based on an original idea by the late Siobhan Dowd, and he and illustrator Jim Kay won Britain’s prestigious Carnegie Medal and Greenaway Medal in 2012, presented to the year’s best children’s literature in the United Kingdom.

Ness is adapting the screenplay from his novel.

Bayona’s last project, The Impossible, earned him a Goya Award for Best Director in February 2013.

Bayona to Direct the Film Adaptation of “A Monster Calls”

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona has landed a monster project…

The 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, whose most recent film The Impossible earned him five Goya Awards, including Best Director, will next direct the film A Monster Calls.

It’s a film adaptation of the children’s fantasy novel of the same name by Patrick Ness from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd.

Set in present-day England, it centers on a boy who struggles to cope with the consequences of his mother’s terminal cancer; he is serially visited in the middle of the night by a monster who tells stories. Dowd suffered from terminal cancer herself when she started the story and died before she could write it.

The film adaptation is already on course to begin production this fall for a 2016 release.

Ness adapted the script his Carnegie Medal– and Greenaway Medal-winning work.

The film is being financed by River Road Entertainment and Participant Media. Meanwhile, Focus Features has committed $20 million to release A Monster Calls.

While Bayona is separately attached to helm a sequel to the zombie saga World War Z this film will come first.

Cuarón Takes Home Two Academy Awards for “Gravity”

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Alfonso Cuarón has matching Oscars to place on his mantel…

The 52-year-old Mexican filmmaker, a three-time nominee at this year’s Academy Awards, took home two prizes during the awards show.

Cuarón was named Best Director for helming the 3D space thriller, Gravity, making him the first Mexican to win the award in that category.

During his acceptance speech, Cuarón paid special tribute to the film’s star Sandra Bullock.

“Sandy, you are Gravity, you are the soul and heart of the film. You are an amazing collaborator and one of the best people I have ever met,” he said.

Moments after Cuarón’s name was read, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto tweeted: “Extraordinary work. Congratulations!”

Speaking backstage after collecting his Oscar, Cuarón said he hoped his win would help shine a light on the work of other Mexican filmmakers, and Mexican culture.

“I don’t think there is enough attention paid to Mexican culture and what is happening in Mexico,” Cuaron said.

Cuarón had been predicted to win the best director award, having swept the category in other awards ceremonies before Sunday’s Oscars, including the Directors Guild of America’s top prize.

In addition, Cuarón took home another award, winning the Best Film Editing Oscar alongside Mark Sanger for his hands-on work on Gravity.

Meanwhile, Gravity’s lenser Emmanuel Lubezki followed up his American Society of Cinematographers Award win with the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

It was the Mexican cinematographer’s first win in six nominations. He previously earned nods for lensing 1995’s A Little Princess, 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, 2005’s A New World, 2006’s Children of Men and 2011’s The Tree of Life. three of Lubezki’s nominations were for his work on Cuarón films.

In all, Gravity was the night’s big winner, taking home seven awards.

But Cuarón and Lubezki weren’t the only Latinos to take home their first Oscars…

Jared Leto, a first-time nominee, took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his critically acclaimed performance as male-to-female transgender character Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. It’s a role the 42-year-old part-Spanish American actor discusses in a featurette from the film’s distributor Focus Features.

Here’s a complete look at this year’s Oscar winners:

Best picture
12 Years a Slave

Best actor
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Best actress
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Best supporting actor
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Best supporting actress
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

Best director
Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

Best animated feature film
Frozen

Best foreign film
The Great Beauty

Best original screenplay
Her, Spike Jonze

Best adapted screenplay
12 Years a Slave, John Ridley

Best original score
Gravity

Best original song
Let It Go, from Frozen

Best cinematography
Gravity

Best costume design
The Great Gatsby

Best documentary feature
20 Feet From Stardom

Best documentary short subject
The Lady in Number 6

Best film editing
Gravity

Best makeup and hairstyling
Dallas Buyers Club

Best production design
The Great Gatsby

Best animated short film
Mr. Hublot

Best live-action short film
Helium

Best sound editing
Gravity

Best sound mixing
Gravity

Best visual effects
Gravity

Hispanically Yours

Celebrating the Latino Influence

Tag Archives: Focus Features