‘Lullaby,’ ‘Utama’ Sweep Spain’s Supersized Malaga Festival

Emilio Mayorga Spanish director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, who swept the board at March’s Málaga Festival, has wrapped shooting on her sophomore feature, “Eres Tú” (It’s You), a Netflix’ romantic comedy produced by Antonio Asensio and Paloma Molina at Zeta Studios ­­– the Madrid-based company behind phenomenon “Elite.” Miriam Rodríguez executive produces.After distributing Almodovar, and signing up J.A. Bayona, this is another move into director driven fare by Netflix in Spain, Ruiz de Azúa’s attachment to “Eres tú marks another association with a prestige director by Netflix in Spain which already distributes Pedro Almodóvar and has signed up J.A.

When I returned to Manchester Airport’s Terminal 1 today with a bag to check in I was expecting the worst. With the airport boss quitting yesterday after daily pictures and stories of mayhem, I was not hopeful in having a smooth journey to Malaga in the south of Spain.

EXCLUSIVE: Dave Logan, creator of Acorn TV’s Harry Wild and writer on Roald Dahl film To Olivia, is developing a crime drama TV series set in Malta with his Harry Wild co-writer Jo Spain.

Sofía Jirau is in Paris working, and her endeavors coincided with her birthday. In a Spanish-language interview with HOLA! USA, the first Victoria’s Secret model, revealed she would spend the last weeks of March working in Europe and celebrating her special date. “I am going to work and also to celebrate my 25th birthday in Paris, France.

The 8th Annual Women’s Voices Now Film Festival: The Rights and Roles of Women: Redefining Our Shared Reality is in the books and the winning films have been selected by our jury: 

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBlue Note New York has announced the 11th Annual Sony Presents Blue Note Jazz Festival. The festival kicks off on June 1 with a free show in Washington Square Park headlined by Robert Glasper — who performed on the Oscars Sunday night — in association with Washington Square Park Conservancy.Taking place at major venues across New York City, including Blue Note New York, Sony Hall, The Town Hall, and SummerStage in Central Park, this year’s festival features performances from George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Chris Botti, Charles Lloyd, Macy Gray, Kenny G, Al Di Meola, Madeleine Peyroux, Dave Holland & Kenny Barron, Robert Cray, Kenny Garrett, José James, Chief Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott), Bilal, DOMi & JD Beck, Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, Theo Croker and so many more legends, with a major headliner announcement on April 26.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentWrapping March 26, the 25th Malaga Festival and its Spanish Screenings delivered another confirmation of Spain’s build as a fiction force in a new platform era. Following, nine final takes on what may prove a historic edition. A Vibrant Spanish ScreeningsMálaga’s plus-size 2022 Spanish Screenings fairly rocked. Extra funding from Spain’s AVS Hub Plan, covering far more buyers’ flights, meant attendance skyrocketed.

Anna Marie de la Fuente The Málaga Festival Industry Zone (MAFIZ) wrapped Thursday, March 25 with a slew of awards parceled out to productions from across Spain and Latin America. Several projects by women filmmakers dominated the event, which kicked off on March 21.Spanish documentarian Carla Subirana’s fiction feature debut, “Sica” made off with three private-sector plaudits, including the Aracne post-production cash prize of €20,000 ($22,000) as well as the REC and Abycine awards, comprising participation in their respective industry labs.Backed by Alba Sotorra’s Cinema Productions, Galician firm Miramira, Spanish pubcaster TVE and Catalonia’s TVC, the coming-of-age drama turns on 13-year-old Sica who waits by the Costa da Morte, a Galician fishing shoreline, for the sea to give up the body of her fisherman father who perished at sea. Other Work in Progress (WIP) awards went to documentary “Of Books and Women,” by María Elorza of Spain and “Nothing” (a working title) by Brazil’s Adriana Guimaraes.“Of Books and Women” offers a glimpse of various women and their relationships to books, one keeps a Franciscan library in a junk room, the other nearly breaks her finger on her bookshop shelves.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II are in Spain promoting their new movie!

 Briefly, five first takeaways from this year’s edition: Spain’s On Fire“Spain’s audiovisual sectors are on fire,” said Luis Cueto, at Spain’s Department of Commerce, at a Malaga round table on Thursday. Just one generation ago, Spanish cinema was regarded with suspicion in Spain’s august financial circles. No more.

Emiliano De Pablos After more than a two decades relationship, media conglom Atresmedia Group and the Málaga Film Festival have grown what looks like a unique case of symbiosis in the Spanish film-TV industry.Atresmedia, a driving force in Spain’s film and TV sectors, joined the Málaga Festival as an official sponsor in 2000. The DeAPlaneta-controlled broadcaster and Málaga, today Spain’s biggest festival dedicated to local and Latin American film and TV, have been faithful witnesses of the evolution of the Spanish film and TV industry.The relationship has benefited both partners.   The Málaga Festival launched in 1998; one year later, a law began to oblige Spanish broadcasters to invest 5% of their annual revenues in local and European films.

Ed Meza @edmezavarFilmax has acquired the international rights to Spanish helmer Hector Claramunt’s escape room comedy, “You Lie You Die.”The pic is based on Claramunt and Joel Joan’s hit stage play “Escape Room,” which has been seen by more than 200,000 people over the course of four seasons. Joen and Claramunt also penned the film’s script.Described as a “madcap” laffer, “You Lie You Die” follows two couples whose plans to have a fun night out at an escape room go south.

Manori Ravindran International EditorAmazon Prime Video is continuing its mission of commissioning “local for local” shows as its European operation becomes more entrenched.Georgia Brown, head of Amazon Studios for Europe, told a packed Series Mania session in Lille on Thursday that her regional staff across the continent aren’t looking for international ideas, but rather location-specific conceits.“If we’re commissioning a big show in Spain, I need it to be a hit in Spain,” said Brown. “Lots of people come to us saying, ‘We have a great international show,’ and that doesn’t really work for us.

Emilio Mayorga Buzzy titles such as “Guián,” “Rhinoceros” and “Of Books and Women I Sing” are among the 14 titles at Málaga’s extensive WIP showcase, a springboard in the past for the discovery of titles such as Spanish horror thriller “The Platform” which, winning the Latido Films Prize at WIP, has gone on to become the second most-watched non-English language movie ever on Netflix.Awarded the biggest plaudit at last year’s Malaga WIP, Adrián Silvestre’s “My Emptiness and I” made a splash at February’s Rotterdam Festival and now competes at Málaga.In a 2022 spread of titles presented over March 22-25, six hail from Spain and eight from Latin-America In addition to the Málaga Film Festival award, private-sector prizes from Aracne Digital Cinema, Damita Joe, Latamcinema.com, Latido Films, Music Library, Yagán Films– are also at stake. The Spanish section’s jury comprises Madrid Film School’s Luis Ferrón, Quatre Films producer Alejandra Mora and Joana Gusmão, DocLisboa co-director.Jury members for the Latin America section are Pamela Biénzobas, a Locarno selection committee member, Cup Filmes producer Iván Carlos De Melo and Antoine Sebire, general delegate at the Biarritz Latin America Festival.2022 Málaga WIP Lineup:Spanish WIP“Of Books and Women I Sing,” (María Elorza, TxintxuaFilms)A creative documentary about four women who have spent their lives reading and studying, safeguarding a precious heritage.

Justin Morgan “Beyond the Summit” (“La Cima”), the latest film from director Ibón Cormenzana, producer of Goya-winning “Blancanieves,” has world premiered at Spain’s Malaga Film Festival, where it must rate as one of the event’s most singular and striking films. It was also one of four new Spanish films to feature in a Market Premiere showcase on Monday, the first day of the Spanish Screenings. The French-Spanish co-production, starring Javier Rey (“Sin fin”) and Patricia López Arnaiz (“The Plague”), tells the story of Mateo (Rey), an amateur mountaineer determined to scale Annapurna, a Nepalese peak rated as one of the world’s deadliest.On his first day, Mateo takes a fall, ending up in the care of revered Spanish mountaineer Ione (Arnaiz), who cares for him despite his recklessness. The story follows a tug-of-war relationship between the two of them, as Mateo seeks to summit despite ghastly conditions, and Ione attempts to bring him to sanity.But Mateo is determined to push for the summit, whatever the cost.

JD Linville Chilean filmmaker Matías Bize’s pandemic-prompted film “Private Messages” will be part of the Official Selection at the 2022 Malaga Film Festival, and the feature dives face-first into the stories which make us human, vulnerable and strong. Bize, who won a Spanish Academy Goya for his Variety-championed film “The Life of the Fish” in 2011, uses self-filmed footage of the film’s international cast (including Blanca Lewin, Nicolás Poblete, Antonia Zegers, Néstor Cantillana, Vicenta Ndongo, Alex Brendemühl and Verónica Intile) confessing their most intimate stories during 2020’s global lockdowns, which coincided with filming.“Private Messages” pieces its narrative together carefully, the truth of its storytellers overlaid with original music, and culminating in a powerful ending which memorializes the power of rebirth. Variety spoke to Bize ahead of his film’s premiere at Malaga.Covid was the impetus for “Private Messages,” but what else inspired the film? This film was born on the first day of the pandemic’s confinement.

“Ainarak,” (“Swallows,” Maluta Films, 601 Prods.Audiovisuales)Directed by Juan San Martín and starring singer-songwriter Anne Etchegoyen, the documentary follows the annual diaspora from 1870 to 1940 of hundreds of women from Navarre and Aragon to Mauléon in the French Pyrenees, where they worked from fall to spring making canvas shoes. First presented at Conecta Fiction in 2021.

2022 Malaga Festival Lineup:Main Competition“Emperor Code,” (“Código Emperador,” Jorge Coira, Vaca Films, Playtime, Spain)The Malaga Fest opener, a noirish crime thriller with special services operative Luis Tosar moonlighting for the elite, here trying to dig up the dirt on a young politico. Segueing rapidly to Netflix after an A Contracorriente release in Spain.“A Mae,” (Cristiano Burlan, Brazil) The latest from the prolific Brazilian narrative and doc director, maker of euthanasia-themed “Antes do fim,” and 2015’s “Hunger.” In it, a humble street vendor mother searches desperately for her missing son, claiming the right to at least bury his body.