Spain’s ‘20,000 Species of Bees,’ Panamanian Drama ‘Sister & Sister’ Win Malaga Film Festival’s Golden Biznagas

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent On the heels of her Oscar victory with “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” the inspiring Michelle Yeoh will be celebrated by Kering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival where she will receive the 2023 Women In Motion Award. The ceremony will be held in Cannes during the glamorous Women In Motion dinner which is dedicated to honoring women in cinema. Yeoh was chosen as this year’s honoree by François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering, and Iris Knobloch, the new president of the Cannes Film Festival, as well Thierry Frémaux, Cannes Festival’s director. The dinner is part of the pioneering Women in Motion program, launched in 2015 during the Festival to highlight the creativity and contribution made by women in the world of culture and the arts.

Jeanne Vaubernier, a young working-class woman hungry for culture and pleasure, uses her intelligence and allure to climb the rungs of the social ladder one by one. She becomes the favourite of King Louis XV who, unaware of her status as courtesan, regains through her his appetite for life.

Johnny Depp will be making his comeback in a big way this year.

Disney and Lucasfilm are really hoping to send the “Indiana Jones” franchise off into the sunset with a bit of a bang.

The Venice Film Festival has set filmmaker Liliana Cavani and actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai to receive this year’s Golden Lions for lifetime achievement. The 80th Venice fest runs from August 30-September 9 on the Lido.

Producer Of Disney+’s ‘A Thousand Blows’ Staffs Up

Ed Meza @edmezavar The Barcelona-set feature “La nit no fa vigília” and Argentine film “Hidden City” (“Ciudad Oculta”) won the Malaga Festival Work in Progress awards for Spanish and Latin American projects on Friday. “La nit no fa vigília” (which roughly translates to “The Night Does Not Keep Watch”) centers on a young man who lives with and cares for his aging, frail grandmother, but still finds time for a nocturnal social life. It was among the frontrunners to win at the awards ceremony. A joint project from a student collective comprising Laura Corominas Espelt, Laura Serra Solé, Clara Serrano Llorens, Gerard Simó Gimeno, Ariadna Ulldemolins Abad and Pau Vall Capdet, “La nit no fa vigília” also won the industry magazine Cine y Tele prize.

Charna Flam Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts” (Spain), Lilo and Camilo Vilaplana’s “Plantadas” (U.S.), Hansel Porras Garcia’s “Febrero” (U.S., Cuba), Chandler Levack’s “I Like Movies” (Canada) and Pavel Giroud’s “The Padilla Affair” (Cuba, Spain) were among the winners at the 40th edition of Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival, which ran March 3-12. “The Beasts,” won the festival’s top awards, including the top jury prize, the $25,000 Knight Marimbas trophy and the Rene Rodriguez Critics nod. In addition to the two awards, “The Beasts” composer, Oliver Arson was recognized for his soundtrack and awarded the Alacran Music in Film Award, he was selected by Art of Light (Composer) Award honoree Nicholas Britell.

Ed Meza @edmezavar This year’s Malaga Festival and its industry section’s Latin American Focus are celebrating Peruvian cinema and talent. A number of Peruvian films are screening in the festival and industry section, including “El Caso Monroy,” by Josué Mendez, and Leonardo Barbuy’s debut feature “Diógenes,” which unspool in the fest’s main section and Zonazine sidebar. As a meeting point for producers and directors from Latin American and investors from Spain and the rest of Europe, the Malaga Festival Industry Zone (MAFIZ) serves as a key hub that promotes the co-production of Latin American projects aimed at the international market.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Panamanian-Costa Rican director Kattia G. Zúñiga, whose debut feature “Las hijas” (“Sister & Sister”) premieres at the Malaga Film festival, is developing a new feature project about women finding their and a tougher attitude late in life through the power of dance. The project re-teams her with “Las Hijas” producer Alejo Crisóstomo. “Rabiosas” (“Raging”, their project, follows a group of 55-year-old friends in Panama who decide to take ballet classes together, as they did when they were schoolgirls, in order to cheer up a friend going through a difficult time and also to get out of the routine of daily life. Inspired by their 26-year-old teacher, however, they soon switch to bolder dancing moves.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Spanish SVOD platform Movistar+ wowed viewers at the Málaga Film Festival on Tuesday with the first episode of “La Unidad Kabul,” the third season of its special police unit thriller. The latest instalment is set in Afghanistan, where Spanish agents are on a new mission to meet an infiltrator with information about a possible attack in Europe. The elite unit is in the war-torn country as the U.S. ends its 20-year occupation, leaving Kabul to be taken by the Taliban. As Spanish authorities begin the evacuation of civilians and collaborators, the agents get caught up in clashes between the Taliban, Mujahideen and Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) forces.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Santiago Requejo has not only turned his hit short, “All in Favor,” into a theatrical play set to premiere in Buenos Aires in April, he’s also working on a feature film version. The award-winning work, which was shortlisted for this year’s live-action short film Oscar, sets the scene with a friendly meeting of apartment owners discussing a new elevator that becomes increasingly tense when they find out one of the neighbors has rented his flat to a work colleague with mental health issues. The stage adaptation, which Requejo co-wrote with Javier Lorenzo and Raul Barranco, begins with the story depicted in the short film and expands its. The play (titled “Votemos” in Argentina rather than “Votamos” as in Spain) premieres April 6 at the Teatro Metropolitan in Buenos Aires.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Jose Pozo, director of the celebrated Spanish short “Plastic Killer,” is traveling to the Western U.S. for his next feature film, “Unusual Cowboys,” which he plans to shoot this year. The story follows Milton, a peaceful rancher and occasional musician who loses his daughter in a traffic accident. Her death has a further tragic impact on Milton’s life, leading him to sell his ranch and travel to Montana in search of Caleb, the man who failed to help his daughter in the accident. It’s a film about two men who in other circumstances could have been good friends. Although separated by terrible circumstances, they share a common passion: Music.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Spanish filmmaker Félix Viscarret, known for tackling such heavy subject matter as the Basque conflict (“Patria”), crime in the Cuban capital Havana (“Four Seasons in Havana: Winds of Lent”) and psychological drama (“Staring at Strangers”), has made perhaps his most personal film yet with a touching and engrossing story of fatherhood and the pitfalls of success.      In “Not Such an Easy Life,” 40-year-old Isaías (Miki Esparbé), a once promising young architect, is struggling to balance career and family, wanting to raise his young children while desperate to achieve the fleeting professional success he once enjoyed as he strives against more ambitious rivals.  

Ed Meza @edmezavar In Álvaro Carmona’s award-winning short, “The Treatment,” Miguel, a middle-aged man unhappy with his baldness, visits a clinic that promises to reverse his hair loss with a new remedy, but with a potentially problematic side effect. The black comedy is a satirical critique of the vanity that is so celebrated in today’s social media-drenched society and it has struck a chord with festival goers, so far picking up 67 domestic and international awards. It’s was also one of four Spanish works shortlisted for this year’s live-action short film Oscar. “Everything arises from trying to play with the idea of this obsession with aesthetics that has become somewhat accentuated in recent years in the modern world,” Carmona tells Variety.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Running March 13-17, the Málaga Festival’s Mafiz-Spanish Screenings Content weigh in this year as one of the biggest dedicated Spanish movie platforms in history, boasting also a strong line in Latin American arthouse projects and productions. 10 Takes as the event kicks off, blessed by early Spring sunshine, in the Andalusian city: XXXL In 2022, super-sized by the Spanish Screenings Content, part of Spain’s €1.6 billion ($1.7 billion) AVS Spain Hub, a vibrant Mafiz, the Malaga Film Festival industry area, fair exploded, delivering  a sterling confirmation of Spain’s build as a fiction force in a platform age, aided by robust state sector backing. This year, Mafiz looks even larger. At 1,560 delegates and counting as of March 6, Mafiz is tracking to pass 2022’s final attendance figure of around 1,600, Juan Antonio Vigar, Málaga Festival director told Variety. Participants come from 62 countries, up from 53 last year. “The event’s consolidation is clear,” Vigar added. “It makes us feel that the work we do is useful for the sector,” he adds. 

Ed Meza @edmezavar Filmax has acquired international rights to “Ashes in the Sky,” the first narrative feature from director Miquel Romans. The film is inspired by the life of Neus Català, a feminist and republican who, after fighting in the Spanish Civil War, was captured by the Nazis and sent into forced labor at a weapons factory in Czechoslovakia. There she became the head of an anti-fascist group of women known as the Gandulas Commando, which resisted the Nazis by sabotaging the factory. The film, based on the book of the same name by Carme Martí, stars Nausicaa Bonnín (“Dating in Barcelona”), Rachel Lascar (“Elite”), Iria del Río (“Visitor”), Thomas Sauerteig, Daniel Horvath (“The Burning Cold”), Fernando Corral, Laura Conejero, Roger Batalla, Natascha Wiese and Joaquín Caserza.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Daniela Fejerman and Elvira Lindo’s “Someone Who Takes Care of Me,” a celebration of actors, their passion, craft and historical legacy, opened this year’s Malaga Film Festival in a fitting tribute to the Spanish entertainment industry.   The film, which screened out of competition, centers on three women whose careers have spanned stage, film and television, actresses of different generations whose fortunes in life have greatly differed and who struggle with untold secrets and unresolved conflicts. Aura Garrido stars as Nora, a young, award-winning actress with a promising future who carefully balances between the two main pillars in her life, her grandmother Lilith (Magüi Mira), who reigned for decades as a renowned theater star, and her mother Cecilia (Emma Suárez), whose career has languished after having achieved some glory in the 1980s, a decade of excess in which she heavily partook.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Kuwaiti-born writer-director Zeyad (also known as “Z”) Alhusaini, whose action movie with comedic undertones “How I Got There” recently won the audience award at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival, has joined United Talent Agency for representation in all areas. The groundbreaking film about two best buddies from childhood, named Salem and Asad, who stumble upon a gun shipment and try to seize this opportunity to get rich quick is set entirely in the Persian Gulf. “How I Got There” provides a relatively realistic glimpse of Kuwait’s present-day melting-pot of cultures, and its underworld of gun-running mercenaries, gangs, and terrorists, plus the local rap scene.

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