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.

Trueba Collects Two Goya Awards for the Spanish Film “Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados”

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

David Trueba is no longer a Goya Awards bridesmaid…

The 44-year-old Spanish novelist, film director and screenwriter, previously nominated for eight Goya Awards, picked up multiple awards at the 28th edition of Spain’s equivalent to the Academy Awards.

Trueba earned Best Director and Best Original Screenplay honors for writing and helming his hit Spanish film Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados (Living is Easy With Eyes Closed).

The film also landed the Spanish Film Academy’s top prize for Best Film.

Trueba’s film, based on the true story of an English teacher who motivated his students using Beatles music, beat out Gracias Querejeta’s 15 Years and a Day, Manuel Martin Cuenca’s Cannibal, Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s Family United and Fernando Franco’s Wounded.

Meanwhile, Alex de la Iglesia’s fantastical Witching & Bitching swept up eight categories, including most of the technical awards, while Living took six awards — among them original score and lead actor.

Editor Fernando Franco won the best new director award for his directorial debut Wounded, while Marian Alvarez won the best actress statue, snagging it in a symbolically young group of actresses with the youngest average age ever for the category.

Miguel Ferrari’s Azul y no Tan Rosa won Venezuela’s first Goya ever for the Best Ibero-American film.

Here’s a complete list of this year’s Goya Award winner:

Film  Living is Easy with Eyes Closed  Fernando Trueba P.C., S.A.

Director  David Trueba for Living is Easy with Eyes Closed

New Director  Fernando Franco for Wounded

Original Screenplay  David Trueba for Living is Easy with Eyes Closed

Adapted Screenplay  Mariano Barroso and Alejandro Hernandez for Todas las Mujeres

Lead Actor  Javier Camara for Living is Easy with Eyes Closed

Lead Actress  Marian Alvarez for Wounded

Supporting Actor  Roberto Alamo for Family United

Supporting Actress  Terele Pavez for Witching & Bitching

New Actor  Javier Pereira for Stockholm

New Actress  Natalia de Molina for Living is Easy with Eyes Closed

Artistic Director  Arturo Garcia Biaffra, Jose Luis Arrizabalaga for Witching & Bitching

Production Design  Carlos Bernases for Witching & Bitching

Original Score Pat Metheny for Living is Easy with Eyes Closed

Original Song Do You Really Want to Be in Love? By Josh Rouse for Family United

Photography Pau Esteve Birba for Cannibal

Editing  Pablo Blanco for Witching & Bitching

Wardrobe  Francisco Delgado Lopez for Witching & Bitching

Hair and makeup  Maria Dolores Gomez Castro, Javier Hernandez Valentin, Pedro Rodriguez and Francisco J. Rodriguez Frias for Witching & Bitching

Sound  Charly Schmukler and Nicolas de Poulpiquet for Witching & Bitching

Special Effect  Juan Ramon Molina and Ferran Piquer for Witching & Bitching

Animated Feature  Foosball, Jempsa, S.Al, Plural Jempsa and Antena 3

Documentary Feature  Las Maestras de la Republica, directed by Pilar Perez Solano

IberoAmerican Film  Azul y no Tan Rosa, directed by Miguel Ferrari (Venezuela)

European Film  Amour directed by Michael Haneke (Austria)

Fiction Short  Abstenerse Agenciasby Gaizka Urresti

Documentary Short  Minerita by Raul de la Fuente

Animated Short  Cuerdas directed by Pedro Solis Garcia

Honorary Goya  Jaime de Arminan

Fresnadillo to Direct Cinemax’s Drama Pilot “Blanco”

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

It’s an extra special Blanco Christmas for Juan Carlos Fresnadillo…

Cinemax has given a pilot greenlight to Blanco, a drama pilot project to be directed by the 45-year-old Spanish filmmaker.

The project, which stars Shiloh Fernandez centers on Ruben (portrayed by Fernandez), an uptown gangster — nicknamed Blanco for being a light-skinned Dominican — who uses his status as a confidential informant to turn the tables on law enforcement and build his criminal empire.

Written by Mark Rosner, Blanco hails from 20th Century Fox Television Studios and Lakeshore Entertainment.

Fresnadillo’s credits include directing 28 Weeks Later and Intacto, which earned him a Goya Award for Best New Director in 2002.

Amenábar to Direct Ethan Hawke in the Thriller “Regression” for The Weinstein Company

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Alejandro Amenábar is partnering with The Weinstein Company-Dimension for his next project…

The film studio has acquired the U.S rights to Regression, an elevated suspense thriller to be directed by the 41-year-old Spanish-Chilean Oscar-winning director.

Amenábar returns to the English language realm with the film, starring Ethan Hawke, which is set in 1980 in a small Minnesota town where a man is arrested for sexually abusing his daughter. He admits his guilt despite having no memory of it. With the help of a psychologist, he relives the memories and implicates a police officer as his partner in crime. The man’s estranged son and other townspeople are also suddenly able to relive suppressed memories of horrific abuse. At the same time, the local news reports blame a Satanic cult that has been performing rituals of orgies, assault, killing animals and even babies, for years. The officers are alarmed when similar reports come in from all around the country—they believe they’ve uncovered a national and possibly supernatural conspiracy. Is the abuse real, or something else?

This marks a re-team between Amenábar, who won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004 for the Javier Bardem-starrer The Sea Inside, and Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who last worked with the helmer at Miramax on The Others, the sleeper hit thriller that starred Nicole Kidman and grossed $97 million U.S. and $210 million worldwide in 2001.

Amenábar, a nine-time Goya Award winner, has a resume that includes Tesis, Abre los ojos and Agora.

Spain Selects Querejeta’s “15 Years and One Day” for Oscars’ Best Foreign Film Consideration

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

She’s won a Goya Award for her work behind the lens… And, now Gracia Querejeta is hoping to win an Oscar.

Spain has selected the 51-year-old Spanish director’s latest film 15 Years and One Day as its entry for Best Foreign Language Film at next year’s Academy Awards.

Chosen by the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences, the film stars Spanish actress Maribel Verdu and tells the story of an unemployed mother and her adolescent son who is expelled from school and sent to live with his grandfather.

Querejeta is daughter of late Spanish film producer Elias Querejeta, who died in June.

15 Years and One Day, which earned several prizes at the Malaga Film Festival, was released in Spain in June and has earned about $544,000 at the box office.

The U.S. film academy will select finalists for the Oscar next January with the awards announced a month later.

The film will also represent Spain in Mexico’s Ariel prizes.

Spain, which has won four Oscars for best foreign language film, submitted the black-and-white silent film Blancanieves, which also stars Verdu, last year, but failed to bag a nomination.

Spain’s last film to win the Best Foreign Language Film prize was 2004’s The Sea Inside, starring Javier Bardem.

AMC Orders the Campanella-Directed “Halt & Catch Fire” Pilot to Series

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Juan José Campanella’s latest project catches fire at AMC…

AMC has picked up the scripted series Halt & Catch Fire. Set in the early 1980s, the series dramatizes the personal computing boom through the eyes of a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy whose innovations directly confront the corporate giants of the time. Their personal and professional partnership will be challenged by greed and ego while charting the changing culture in Texas’ Silicon Prairie. It stars Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis.

The pilot was helmed by the 54-year-old Argentine film and television director. His directing credits include House MD, 30 Rock and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Halt & Catch Fire stars Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis.

In 2009, Campanella won a Goya Award and an Academy Award for directing the Spanish-Language film El secreto de sus ojos.

Sheen to Voice Character in Animated Film “Wrinkles”

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Martin Sheen is embracing his arrugas…

The 72-year-old half-Spanish American Actor and former West Wing star, is lending his voice to Wrinkles, the English-language version of the Spanish animated film, which was directed by Ignacio Ferreras and based on Paco Roca’s award-winning graphic novel.

Dubbed by GKIDS, the film will be in all ingles, and available in all English-language foreign territories.

Wrinkles, which tackles a universal subject matter with humor and acerbic wit, centers on former bank manager Emilio, who is being dispatched to a retirement home by his family. His new roommate is a wily, wheeler-dealer named Miguel, who cheerfully swindles small amounts of cash from the more befuddled residents but is also full of handy insider tips that are crucial to survival.

Along with Sheen, the English voice cast includes George Coe and Matthew Modine,

Wrinkles is considered an animated movie for adult audiences. The film has garnered wide critical acclaim, multiple festival awards, and earned two Goya Awards in its home country of Spain.

The English-dubbed version of Wrinkles is set for release in early 2014.

Delgado Wins Saturn Award for “Les Miserables”

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Paco Delgado is still picking up awards for his Miserables work…

The Spanish costume designer, who earned his first Oscar nomination this year, won a Saturn Award for Best Costume for his impressive work on Les Miserables.

Delgado oversaw the creation of more than 2,200 outfits for the ensemble cast of the epic film. He recently opened up about his designs in an online featurette.

Delgado’s credits include creating the Goya Award-winning costumes for Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves, as well as the Pedro Almodovar films Bad Education and The Skin I Live In.

He most recently completed work on Álex de la Iglesia’s Witching and Bitching.

Crespo’s “Aquel No Era Yo” Earns Special Award at the Palm Springs ShortFest

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Esteban Crespo is bridging borders with his latest work…

The 42-year-old Spanish filmmaker has earned the Bridging the Borders Award, presented by Cinema Without Borders, at the Palm Springs ShortFest.

Crespo earned the award Sunday night for helming the short Aquel No Era Yo, which earned a Goya Award this year in the best fictional short category.

The Palm Springs ShortFest is the largest short film fest and only short film market in North America.

Dorado Signs with William Morris Endeavor

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Jorge Dorado’s future looks bright in Hollywood…

The 36-year-old Spanish filmmaker and emerging talent signed on with noted talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME) during this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Dorado, who began his career working as an assistant director with the likes of Pedro Almodóvar, Baz Luhrmann and Guillermo del Toro, made his feature directing debut with the psychological thriller Mindscape for Studio Canal.

The film, starring Mark Strong, Brian Cox and Taissa Farmiga, centers on a detective with the ability to enter peoples’ memories (Strong) who takes on the case of a brilliant, troubled, but dangerous 16-year-old girl, Anna (Farmiga), to determine if she’s a sociopath or a victim of trauma.

The film is scheduled for a fall 2013 release.

Dorado has directed several award-winning shorts including the Goya Award-nominated La guerra, which won 47 awards at festivals throughout the world.

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