Hosting ‘The Witcher’ S2, ‘House of the Dragon,’ Spain Film Commission’s Exponential Growth, and its Future Goals

Michaela Zee editor Ron Howard will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Directing at the 25th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 23. Recently, Howard directed and produced the biographical survival feature, “Thirteen Lives,” starring Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell and Joel Edgerton. Based on the Tham Luang cave rescue in 2018, the film revolves around a team of divers and their mission to rescue twelve boys and the coach of a Thai soccer team who are trapped in a system of underground caves. “Thirteen Lives” will be screened at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, followed by an in-person conversation with Howard about his career.

A Barcelona court has ordered Colombian music superstar Shakira to stand trial for six counts of alleged tax fraud in the amount of 14.5M million euros ($13.9 million), according to the BBC and local reports. This past summer, it was reported that the Grammy winner was potentially facing an eight-year prison sentence and a fine of 23.8 million euros ($22.7 million) if found guilty. She has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

The trial against Shakira is set to go forward.

Don’t lie. Shakira was ordered to court after she was charged with tax fraud. The “Can’t Remember to Forget You” singer was charged with tax fraud in Spain after she allegedly didn’t pay taxes in the country from 2012 to 2014.

Gerhard Zeiler has talked up the “development of franchises” including Harry Potter, DC and Game of Thrones as the key priority for the merged entity six months after he was handed the top international role.

Emiliano De Pablos Top Spanish arthouse distributor-producer Avalon had boarded “La niña de la cabra” (“Goat Girl”), the sophomore film by actor-director Ana Asensio whose “Most Beautiful Island” feature snagged the SXSW Grand Jury Award in 2017. The project, which has just earned support from Spain’s ICAA film institute, is set up at Aquí y Allí Films and co-produced with Romania’s Avantpost Media. Pedro Hernández’s Aquí y Allí Films is the producer behind Antonio Méndez Esparza’s festival hits “Here and There,” a Cannes Critics’ Week winner, and “Life and Nothing More.” An allegorical drama set in the suburbs of Madrid in the late ’80s, “Goat Girl” is scheduled to roll in 2023 and has been acquired for international sales by Paris-based Alpha Violet.

Robin Wright and husband Clement Giraudet have split.

Emiliano De Pablos Portuguse public broadcaster RTP has taken an undisclosed co-production stake in animated series “My Brother Is a T-Rez,” a Spanish-Portuguese project created and directed by Spaniard Javi Peces (“Bento”). Executive produced by Celine Fernandes at Portuguese animation house Lusco Fusco Animation in co-production with Madrid-based Mr. Klaus Studio, “My Brother” is an upper pre-school series project aimed to promote adventure, educational and sustainability values. The project was previously pre-bought by Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE for its children-oriented channel Clan TV.

The Rome Film Festival has unveiled its first line-up under the new management team of former Rai executive Paola Malanga as artistic director and Cineteca di Bologna director Gian Luca Farinelli as president, who were both appointed to their roles last March.

Emiliano De Pablos As part of its objective of building into a key industry hub in the European animation and VFX landscape, Spain’s Madrid will host for the first time an edition of renowned training event Cartoon Springboard, which will run Oct. 25-27. 24 animated series and feature film projects by young European talents will be presented at the meeting, where a panel of experts will mentor the selected writers, directors, and producers with the aim of strengthening their projects both creatively and financially.  Organised by Cartoon, the training event reaches Madrid, after having been previously held in the cities of Valencia, Valenciennes and Halle. 

Emiliano De Pablos “The Silence of the Ants,” by documentary filmmaker Francisco Montoro, snagged top prizes at the 18th Lau Haizetara Documentary Co-Production Forum, part of the San Sebastián Festival. The documentary took the Ibaia–Elkargi Award for best project at the pitching session, plus the Distribution and Festival Consultancy Treeline Award and the Fipadoc Biarritz Award. Produced by Apnea Films, “The Silence of the Ants” follows a Spanish couple who traveled to the Ukraine in 2015 to find the seven-year-old girl they hosted for temporary foster care. Federation Spain’s “Carapirú: El Superviviente,” by Aner Etxebarria and Pablo Vidal, took The Ibaia – Bilibin Circular Prize for its environmental values with a title suggesting a combination of “Cast Away” and “Apocalypto” translated to real life in Brazil’s Amazon jungle.

Emiliano De Pablos Spain’s Madrid region is riding the crest of a wave towards becoming one of the most important animation/VFX hubs in Europe. Taking in the country’s capital, the Madrid region hosts more than 32% of Spain’s active audiovisual companies and around 31% of its animation and VFX firms.  Regional animation and VFX players – structured around Pixel Cluster Madrid –  scored last year a net revenue of €72.6 million ($72.6 million) and generated 1,855 jobs.  “Animation and video games are strategic sectors within the economy of Madrid,” says Ignacio Carballo, head of audiovisual industries in the Madrid region. “They are elements of the future, dynamizers.”

Emiliano De Pablos Eight animated TV series projects involving Spanish companies will be presented to buyers and producers attending 2022 Cartoon Forum’s pitching sessions, the event’s main attraction.  Among well-known production companies presenting their latest cartoon shows figure In Efecto Atlantis, the Spanish-French studio behind Disney’s series “Tara Duncan;”Sygnatia, the producer of multi-award winning animated film “Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles,” and Peekaboo Animation, creator of world sales hit series “I, Elvis Riboldi.”  Two of the Spanish projects selected (“My Brother is a T-Rez” and “Polka Dot Zebra”) target preschoolers; five titles (“Bertie’s Brainwaves,” “Best Friends Forever… Stranded!,” “Mervyn’s Album,” “The Little Orchestra” and “Zoey Oceans”) are intended for older children; “Firsts” aims for family audiences.

Emiliano De Pablos The rise of Spain’s animation power promises to provide one of the leading narratives at this year’s Cartoon Forum.   In one of its strongest representations ever at the Toulouse event, eight high-profile TV series projects from Spain will be pitched, trailing only France.   To complete its standout presence, a spotlight on Spain will take place at the Forum, with several networking activities to promote local industry, backed by Spanish trade promotion broad ICEX in collaboration with Diboos, the country’s toon and VFX federation. In recent years, the animation scene has experienced a historic growth, becoming a key sector in the rapidly growing local audiovisual market. 

Olivia Wilde is looking stunning on the red carpet!

Olivia Wilde is continuing to promote her movie Don’t Worry Darling ahead of its release next weekend.

Shakira and Gerard Piqué meet with lawyers on September 15 in Barcelona, Spain. The 45-year-old singer, alongside her attorneys, Pilar Mañé and Diego Muñoz, met with the 35-year-old soccer player, who, according to La Vanguardia, after 30 minutes, walked off the reunion.

Ana de Armas is a proud actress. The 2022 Venice Film Festival comes to an end tomorrow and Thursday saw the world premiere of the highly anticipated film about Marilyn Monroe’s life, Blonde. Once the movie ended, there was a 14-minute long standing ovation.According to Variety, the Cuban-Spanish actress was glowing as tears ran down her face.

Emiliano De Pablos Launched early May, the Spain Audiovisual Bureau acts as a facilitator for the production sector, attending enquiries about international markets, handling information about processing filming permits and providing tax incentives information. A ground-breaking development in Spain, the Bureau marks a first-ever effort to coordinate public and private entities related to the international presence of the Spanish film and TV production industry. The Spain Audiovisual Bureau represents an innovation of the Spain AVS Hub, an initiative launched in March 2021 by the Spanish government with a €1.6 billion ($1.6 billion) budget to power up local film and TV production and encourage big foreign players to shoot and set up production centers in the country.