Agustí Villaronga’s Dramedy ‘Loli Tormenta’ Boarded by Film Factory (EXCLUSIVE)

Carson Burton The NBA’s favorite nice guy is now dribbling his way into the hearts of movie fans.Boban Marjanović, a center on the Dallas Mavericks, stars in the second film of his career with the new Adam Sandler film “Hustle,” now on Netflix. The film follows Sandler’s character, a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, as he discovers and transforms a Spanish player played by Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangomez.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLooking beyond its The Alliance partnership with France Télévisions and Italy’s RAI, Germany’s ZDF Studios has boarded six-part series “Boundless,” (“Sin Límites”), an epic adventure tale of the first circumnavigation of the world 500 years ago whose backers include Spanish pubic broadcaster RTVE.Directed by Simon West (“Con Air,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”), “Boundless” stars Alvaro Morte, the Professor in “Money Heist,” as Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano and “Westworld’s” Rodrigo Santoro as Portugal’s Ferdinand Magellan.The six-part series is described by Robert Franke, VP drama, ZDF Studios, as “one of the biggest and most ambitious dramas that ZDF Studios has ever had the pleasure of being involved with.” “Boundless” is produced by Miguel Menéndez de Zubillaga (“Loving Pablo”) for Madrid-based Mono Films (“Descarrilados”) in co-production with Leo Pearlman and Heather Greenwood at London’s Fullwell 73 (“One Direction 3D: This is Us,” “Bros: After the Screaming Stops”). It is co-produced by Patrick Fischer and Richard Kondal.Backed by Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, it is also one of the biggest Spanish-language plays to date of Amazon’s Prime Video which will bow the flagship drama in exclusivity in Spain and Latin America on June 10.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs part of the celebration around the late Lou Reed’s 80 th birthday, an album of his earliest demos — comprising a number of Velvet Underground classics recorded in 1965, along with several songs dating back to his college and teen years — will be released August 26 on Light in the Attic Records in partnership with Reed’s longtime partner Laurie Anderson.The album, titled “Words & Music, May 1965,” is the inaugural release from the Lou Reed Archive Series, and dovetails with the opening Thursday of an extensive Reed exhibit at the New York Public Library, titled “Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars.” The album includes the earliest known recordings of such classics as “Heroin,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Iʼm Waiting for the Man” and several unreleased tracks. See the full tracklist below; listen to Reed’s 1965 demo of “I’m Waiting for the Man”:The bulk of the album is comprised of the 1965 tracks, which were recorded with the assistance of Reed’s future bandmate John Cale.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentParis-based sales company Charades has closed a raft of deals on “Forever Young,” Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s film which competed at Cannes and earned a warm critical welcome. “Forever Young” opens at the end of the 1980s in Paris and follows a young troupe of comedians who have just have been admitted to Les Amandiers, the prestigious theater school headed by Patrice Chéreau. Bruni Tedeschi wrote the script alongside Agnès De Sacy and regular collaborator Noémie Lvovsky.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films has locked major territory deals on Leonor Serraille’s drama “Mother and Son” which world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and garnered strong reviews. “Mother and Son” charts the lives of a young African woman, Rose, and two of her four children, Jean and Ernest, who come to France from the Ivory Coast in the 1980s with high ideals.

Christopher Vourlias Zeynep Atakan, the producer of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Palme d’Or winner “Winter Sleep,” has come on board to co-produce and handle international sales for “Hilal, Feza and Other Planets,” director Kutluğ Ataman’s follow-up to his 2014 Berlin Film Festival player, “The Lamb.”The film begins soon after Turkey’s September 1997 coup, when Hilal and Fatma leave their Muslim town near the Turkish capital, Ankara, to study at the state university in Istanbul. A new law bars Fatma from entering the campus if she wears her religious head scarf.

Pablo Sandoval World premiering at the Cannes ACID showcase, “Polaris” explores the intimate relationship between two sisters, Hayat and Leila. The film, set between the isolated Northern Sea and warm, well-connected France, aims to bring a human perspective to this tale of sisterhood set against dramatic land- and seascapes.“Polaris” marks the doc feature debut of Spain’s director Ainara Vera whose experience includes workings a first AD and co-editor on several of Victor Kossakovsky’s productions, including the Berlinale 2020-selected  “Gunda.”Vera and Hayat met on the shoot of another Kossakovsky movie, “Aquarela,” during which the two fostered a bond, with Hayat serving on Kossakovsky and Vera’s sailors crew.

Deadline’s studio at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival kicked off at the American Pavilion by hosting fest-goers such as Joel Edgerton of The Stranger, Jesse Eisenberg and Julianne Moore of When You Finish Saving The World, and many more. Click on the photo above to launch the gallery.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentREinvent International Sales has closed major territory sales on “UFO Sweden,” a science fiction movie adventure from Crazy Pictures, a Swedish film collective whose past credits includes the 2018 hit movie “The Unthinkable.”Described as a mix between “X-Files” and “Stranger Things,” “UFO Sweden” is set in a small town and follows a teenage rebel placed in foster care, who suspects that her father is not dead, but has been kidnapped by UFOs. With the help from a UFO association, she is determined to find out the truth.

EXCLUSIVE: Leonine Studios has taken worldwide rights to German-Norwegian thriller series The Seed (working title), which is set around the explosive takeover of a seed company and comes from Chameleon writer Christian Jeltsch.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“1976,” the awaited first feature of Chile’s Manuela Martelli, has closed first new major territories for sales company Luxbox before its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight later this upcoming week.The film is produced out of Chile by writer-directors Omar Zúñiga (“The Strong Ones”) and Dominga Sotomayor (“Too Late to Die Young”) at auteur-focused Chile-based Cinestación (“Too Late to Die Young”) as well as Alejandra Garcia and Andrés Wood, another celebrated Chilean director (“Violeta Went to Heaven”) at Wood Productions. Nathalia Videla Peña and Juan Pablo Gugliotta at Argentina’s Magma Cine co-produce.“1976” is set, as its title implies, in 1976, one of the bloodiest years of Augusto Pinochet’s hugely bloody dictatorship.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLeading arthouse sales company the Match Factory has acquired the rights to “Bachmann & Frisch,” a biopic about the radical Austrian writer and poet Ingeborg Bachmann, directed by Venice Golden Lion winner Margarethe von Trotta. The film stars Vicky Krieps — who appears in two Cannes Film Festival films this year, “Corsage” and “More Than Ever” — as the poet, and Ronald Zehrfeld (“Barbara,” “Phoenix”) as her partner, the Swiss writer Max Frisch.The pickup follows the international sales success for the Match Factory with Von Trotta’s “Hannah Arendt” in 2012.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLola Arabia and Dubai’s Charisma Group are readying Agustí Villaronga’s “Arabian Aroma” and Pau Miró’s “Lost Symphony,” the first two titles in a 12-pic production alliance unveiled during the Berlin. FestivalBoth movies are in pre-production, budgeted around $6 million and feature women “who passionately set themselves on a mission,” the partners announced.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorErotic love story “99 Moons,” which has its world premiere in Cannes’ ACID sidebar today, has kicked off international sales. Berlin-based M-Appeal is handling the rights to the film, which is directed by Jan Gassmann.Arthouse VOD platform Filmin has taken the rights in Spain, and arthouse distributor StraDa Films has taken the films for Greece. France and Latin America are in negotiation.

Absolutely Ascot star Mia Sully is set to join The Only Way is Essex, according to reports. The 23 year old has supposedly signed with the hit ITVBe series after being “headhunted” by bosses and will reportedly be joined by two of her friends following negotiations of her new contract.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In response to shifting dynamics at film festivals, many of which have been impacted by the pandemic, a new curated Spanish film platform, Panoramic.film is entering the market.Spearheaded by curator Xavier Puerto, director of the Festival REC de Tarragona and a Spanish-language film programmer for the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia, Panoramica’s offer is two-fold: “We offer festivals the possibility of completing their line-up with especially curated programs and, through our selective catalogue, offer filmmakers the chance to see their films extend their rounds on the international festival circuit,” said Puerto.The idea for the platform came about after conversations with various festival heads and cultural institutions as they grappled with the changes brought about by the pandemic, with many forced to hold online or hybrid editions. “On the other hand, it is a common conversation among filmmakers that most films, for a variety of reasons, have a very ‘short’ life on the festival scene, regardless of their quality,” Puerto noted.With a number of festivals coming to realize that a hybrid version has enabled them to reach audiences beyond their borders, many have embraced it for the long term.“We want to help festivals with the sometimes rather complex process of presenting a hybrid version and help its audiences discover hidden gems,” said Puerto.In practice, Panoramica is integrated into the programming of the festival itself, as well as on its website with a series of conditions such as viewings with geo-blocking, specific dates or viewing limitations.

Emiliano De Pablos Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment has acquired international sales rights to horror-thriller “El Cuco” (“The Cuckoo’s Curse”), the latest film by “The Photographer of Mauthausen” and “Two” producer-director Mar Targarona, set up at top Spanish genre auteur house Rodar y Rodar.Vicente Canales’ Film Factory, one of the biggest sales forces in the Spanish-speaking world, is presenting “The Cuckoo’s Curse” to international buyers with a first promo at this week’s Cannes Film Market.Just finished shooting in Barcelona and Germany’s The Black Forest, “The Cuckoo’s Curse” is a Spain-Germany co-production that teams Rodar y Rodar with Barry Films, a Berlin, L.A. and Zurich-based company led by producers Benito and Wolfgang Mueller (“The Perfect Enemy,” “The Whistleblower”).

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorErotic love story “99 Moons,” which will have its world premiere in Cannes’ ACID sidebar, has debuted its trailer (below). Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has acquired the world sales rights to the film, which is directed by Jan Gassmann. The film centers on Bigna, a 28-year-old scientist, and 33-year-old Frank.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentMiguel Bernardeau, Guzmán in Netflix smash hit “Elite,” and Mexico’s Renata Notni will head the cast of “Zorro,” a reboot series from Los Angeles-based Secuoya Studios and John Gertz that will stream in exclusivity on Amazon’s Prime Video in the U.S., Latin America and Spain. The flagship series at Secuoya Studios, “Zorro,” a modern take on the hero, is directed by Javier Quintas, whose credits include episodes of “Money Heist” and “Sky Rojo,” and Miguel Angel Vivas, a director on “Locked Up” and “Unauthorized Living.” Written by Carlos Portela (“Hierro,” “Velvet Collection”), the 10 episode series is executive produced for Secuoya Studios by David Martínez, David Cotarelo and Angela Agudo.  John Gertz, founder of Zorro Productions and a producer on “The Mask of Zorro” and “The Legend of Zorro” movies titles, also executive produces along with former Sony exec Andy Kaplan at KC Global Media, Sergio Pizzolante for C&T Mobs, and Jesús Torres and Glenda Pacanins at NoStatusQuo Studios.Bernardeau will play a new version of Diego de la Vega, a landowner and, in disguise, masked hero of the people.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefLeading Japanese indie studio Gaga Corporation is launching suspense thriller “#Manhole” next week at Cannes.Being directed by Kumakiri Kazuyoshi (“My Man,” “Sketches of Kaitan City”), from a screenplay by Okada Michitaka (“Masquerade Hotel”), the film depicts a promising young man, with everything going for him, who falls to the bottom of a deep manhole on the eve of his wedding. Trapped and imagining all sort of horrors, the prospective bridegroom uses his smartphone to reach out to friends, the police and social media. But his predicament becomes worse.