Iciar Bollain’s Movistar Plus+ Original ‘I’m Nevenka’ Secures First Pre-Sales as Premium Feature Wraps Production (EXCLUSIVE)
03.04.2024 - 12:16
/ variety.com
Movistar Plus+ original film and the awaited next feature from Spain’s Iciar Bollaín (“Take My Eyes,” “Maixabel”), has closed its earliest pre-sales, struck by Film Factory Entertainment, including a bellwether deal in France. The deals come as “I’m Nevenka” has wrapped production, shooting in the Basque city of Bilbao before transferring to rural Zamora, western Spain.
Daniel Chabannes’ Epicentre Films, a classic 30-year-old distributor and producer of non-English language art pics, especially from Europe and Latin America, whose recent acquisitions take in San Sebastian Gold Shell winner “The Rye Horn” and Amos Gitai’s “It’s Not Over,” has acquired French rights. A distributor of both big Cannes winners – “Triangle of Sadness,” “Rosetta,” “The Child” – and slightly more out-there propositions, such as Pablo Berger’s silent movie “Blancanieves,” Xenix Film Distribution has clinched rights to Switzerland.
Iciar Bollaín: A Broader Audience Auteur The early pre-sales are hardly surprising. Since her big breakout, third feature “Take My Eyes” (“Te doy mis ojos,”), few Spanish art film/crossover directors have so often commanded an audience in their native Spain as Iciar Bollaín.
Described as “a captivating Spanish drama,” penned by Bollaín’s partner, Ken Loach scribe Paul Laverty, and introducing Anna Castillo (“Nowhere,” “A Perfect Story”) to broader film audiences, “The Olive Tree” grossed €1.7 million ($1.8 million) for a tale of a young woman who conceives an apparently madcap mission to retrieve her family’s 2,000 year-old olive tree, sold to a Dusseldorf energy company. 2021’s “Maixabel,” released at a still pandemic-whammied Spanish box office, did even better, ending up as the fourth highest-grossing film of the
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