RTVE-RTP Co-Production ‘Sequía’ Aims to Bring an Emotional Punch to Southern Noir

Do you think Joaquin Phoenix took Rooney Mara to the Joker stairs during their New York City adventure on Tuesday? Actually, the stairs are in the Bronx, and the couple was photographed in Manhattan on Oct. 6.

Laure Calamy and the best director award for Eric Gravel in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival, has scored multiple territory deals for Brussels-based sales company Be For Films.

Fremantle has completed its acquisition of 12 NENT Studios production labels in the Nordics for an undisclosed sum. The purchase, first announced in July, will see Fremantle take control of Strong Productions (Denmark); Grillfilms, Moskito Television and Production House (Finland); Monster, Novemberfilm, One Big Happy Family, Playroom, Rakett and Strix TV (Norway); and Balbua and Strix Television (Sweden).

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentOrganized by the Cannes Festival and Market and Argentina’s INCAA film agency, this year’s Ventana Sur, the biggest film-TV event in Latin America, is rapidly gaining in critical mass.In one crucial development, INCAA president Luis Puenzo confirmed to Variety that Ventana Sur will coincide with the latest meetings of CAACI, the body of governmental audiovisual authorities in Ibero-America – Latin America, Spain and Portugal – and of its biggest

Liza Foreman German animation studio Fabian & Fred has boarded Spanish director Isabel Herguera’s animated feature “Sultana,” which is set between a fictional feminist utopia and India under British colonial rule.The Spain-Germany co-production is inspired by a feminist utopian book “Sultana’s Dream,” written in 1905 by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a Bengali female activist from a village in British India.The two partners are in talks with an Indian partner to join the film, and Herguera is working

Jamie Lang French software company Kinetix took home the €10,000 ($11,800) Startup Challenge prize from this year’s San Sebastian Zinemaldia & Technology sidebar, held at and in partnership with the Tabakalera, an international center of contemporary culture and technology based in the Spanish city.In addition to the cash prize, the company is offered space in an incubator for a year at one of the Basque Technology Park Network’s BICs (Business Innovation Centers) as well as access to funding

Johnny Depp is starting a new venture.

Jamie Lang Narrowing down the best Basque projects on the horizon has become increasingly difficult in recent years, as the region is experiencing a boom in both the quality and quantity of local production that has made prognostication more difficult than ever.Below, Variety has picked 20 projects from that crowded field which we will be tracking in the coming years.“Almanac” (Jorge Moneo Quintana)A Berlinale Talents project, “Almanac” challenges the limits of documentary cinema by revisiting

EXCLUSIVE: Spanish indie production powerhouse Mediapro is at San Sebastian Film Festival this year screening two of the buzziest local features in the program: the Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz and Oscar Martinez-starring Official Competition, which arrives from Venice, and the Javier Bardem-fronted The Good Boss, which premieres here.

Liza Foreman Spanish producer Piluca Baquero (“Lo que sé de Lola”) is teaming with former BTF Media executive Miguel Bueno to launch Ramen Story & Content Studio, a new – and ambitious – TV-film production venture.Also on board areMiguel Arnas, José Antonio Bosch and Jesus Gómez, Baquero will serve as an executive producer on titles, Bueno, who worked making commercials for much of his career, is director of content at Ramen.Ramen is focusing on two projects to begin with but “we are not

Emilio Mayorga Executive producer Nuria Landete and Spanish production-distribution company Elamedia are teaming to co-produce the feature debut of Ainhoa Menéndez, “In the Flesh,” a romantic drama with dashes of terror.The project is being developed at Spain’s Incubator platform, a six-month producer mentorship initiative, which is part of The Screen industry program at the Madrid Film and Audiovisual School (ECAM).“Flesh” follows Mara, a woman almost in her thirties, working as a stock girl

EXCLUSIVE: Spain’s flagship film event, the San Sebastian Film Festival, gets underway tonight. Ahead of the fest, Deadline sat down with Netflix’s two top content executives in Spain to hear about the streamer’s strategy in the key European market, which has the unique advantage of also being a content bridge into the company’s Latin American activities.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentRanging from La Rochelle in France to near Zaragoza in the South, well into Spain, Euroregion NAEN – Nouvelle Aquitaine, Basque Country, Navarre – has extraordinary locations and a rich historical heritage.It has hosted shoots from “The Longest Day” to “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” in Nouvelle Aquitaine to “Game of Thrones,” which lensed in both Navarre’s Bardenas Reales and on the Basque isle of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, its

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Anna Marie de la Fuente In its continued bid to lure more international productions to Spain and Portugal, Barcelona-based multinational The Mediapro Group has tapped L.A.-based Spanish publicist Alvar Carretero to represent the company in Hollywood.For the past 25 years, Mediapro has been represented in the U.S.

APPOINTMENTSWarner Chappell has named Santiago Menéndez-Pidal as President, Southern Europe. He will also continue to run Warner Chappell Spain.