Wild Bunch’s Vincent Maraval Talks Cannes, Venice, Netflix & Industry Opportunities — San Sebastian

Whether it’s a documentary detailing the heinous crimes of the world’s most despicable serial killers or a dramatical exploration of what makes a murderer tick, the Netflix generation has no doubt become addicted to true crime shows. Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has become one of the most successful series for the streaming giant, with almost 500m hours viewed since its launch.

Lurid mysteries abound in Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio’s latest feature, “The Wonder.” Starring “Don’t Worry Darling” and “Little Women” Oscar nominee Florence Pugh as an nurse tasked with caring for an ailing 11-year-old girl who’s inexplicably not eaten in four months, the first trailer showcases an atmospheric, 19th century tale with eerie twists and turns as Pugh nurse, the girl’s family and the townspeople around them fights to determine the young girl’s secret. Per a logline from distributor Netflix, which debuted the film Sept.

HBO Max has given an eight-episode straight-to-series order to How To Be a Bookie, the first comedy for the streamer from one of Warner Bros. Television’s top showrunners, Chuck Lorre, co-creator/exec producer of HBO Max’s most watched off-network series, The Big Bang Theory. Actor-comedian Sebastian Maniscalco (The Irishman) is set to star in the single-camera series, which Lorre is co-writing with one of his close associates over the past decade, Nick Bakay. It is comedy king Lorre’s first sale since the start of the pandemic.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter HBO Max has given a straight-to-series order to a new comedy series from Chuck Lorre and Nick Bakay with Sebastian Maniscalco set for the lead role, Variety has learned. The single-camera show is titled “How to Be a Bookie.” HBO Max has given it an eight-episode order. Per the official logline, “A veteran bookie (Maniscalco) struggles to survive the impending legalization of sports gambling, increasingly unstable clients, family, co-workers, and a lifestyle that bounces him around every corner of Los Angeles, high and low.” Lorre and Bakay serve as co-writers and executive producers on the show. Maniscalco will executive produce in addition to starring, with Judi Marmel also executive producing. Warner Bros. Television is the studio. Chuck Lorre productions is currently under an overall deal at WBTV. The show marks Lorre’s first series at HBO Max.

Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio has achieved a lot of great things in the last few years, ever since his career took off with the 2013 film “Gloria.” For one, A24 asked him to remake that film as “Gloria Bell” in 2018, starring Julianne Moore. Then the year before that, he released two movies in one year, 2017’s “Disobedience” and “A Fantastic Woman,” the latter winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, making it the first Chilean film to win that honor.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In a clear vote of confidence for Colombian director Juan Sebastián Mesa, Bordeaux-based Dublin Films has boarded his third film “Lovers Go Home!” The company also co-produced Mesa’s lauded sophomore pic, “The Rust.” “Lovers Go Home!” centers on a Colombian single mom who leads a double life as a webcammer. One day she meets a U.S. veteran online who becomes obsessed with her. He flies to Colombia to meet her in person. Their meeting makes them reflect on who they truly are. In development, the project participated in this year’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, one of San Sebastian Film Festival’s key industry events, which ran over Sept. 19-21. 

Colombian filmmaker Laura Mora has clinched the Golden Shell in the main competition of the 70th San Sebastian Film Festival with her latest feature The Kings of the World (Los reyes del mundo).

Ana de Armas bares it all in the upcoming movie Blonde and she expects the clips to go viral online, which she says is “upsetting just to think about.”

Today, Netflix promoted its massive slate of feature films and television series during their big event Tudum. The streamer showcased various clips, teasers, and behind-the-scenes footage for some of their original movies, such as action projects with big names attached in lead roles.

San Sebastian Grows (Again) “There are markets that have improved during COVID-19, and others that haven’t and San Sebastian is a festival that’s improved thanks to its industry activities,” says Film Factory’s Vicente Canales. That build comes from afar, with a Films in Progress strand in 2002, an Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum from 2012, the Ikusmira Berriak development residency from 2017 and now a Creative Investors Conference. 

Liza Foreman Murky blue- brown images, bringing to mind a Lorca play developed for today’s premium TV audience, fill the screen in the trailer for “The Gypsy Bride,” from “Penny Dreadful” director Paco Cabezas, which world premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival. The fiction is produced by ViacomCBS International Studios (VIS), with the participation of Atresmedia Televisión, and in collaboration with Diagonal TV. As well as presenting the first season of the series at the Spanish-speaking world’s highest-profile festival, Cabezas, the show’s creator and director had something else to celebrate on Wednesday. 

Liza Foreman Spanish production and distribution company Bteam Pictures has picked up all rights for Spain to San Sebastián competition title “Los Reyes del Mundo” (“Kings of the World”). Film Factory Entertainment brokered the deal with Bteam partners Ania Jones, Alex Lafuente and Lara Pérez Camiña. Film Factory’s Vicente Canales confirmed to Variety that the company is handling worldwide sales for the film, excluding France, Benelux, Colombia and Mexico.  “Bteam is well known for distributing quality films in Spain and has already released several of our Spanish pictures,” said Canales. “We believe they are the best match for ‘Kings of the World,’ which is one of the most important Colombian films of the year.”

Come in quickly, Insiders. It’s getting colder out there. Jesse Whittock here with a rundown of this week’s top news and analysis, coming to you from across Europe.

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.

David Cronenberg described his next film, The Shrouds, as a personal and partly autobiographical project, during a press conference at the San Sebastian film festival Wednesday.

The presence of Movistar Plus+, Spain’s biggest pay-TV/SVOD operator, is hard to ignore at this year’s San Sebastian film festival, with two original TV series and one feature film helmed by the streamer scattered throughout the program. The Telefonica-owned platform also had a hand in every Spanish feature in the festival’s Official Selection. Domingo Corral, director of original fiction at Movistar Plus+, caught up with Deadline at San Sebastian to discuss the company’s drive into original production, the current boom in local Spanish productions, and how he competes with global streamers like Netflix and HBO.

Europe’s Big Hope: Platforms Really Embracing Cinema In the U.S., the platforms already buy big when it comes to movies. Think Sundance. Europe is another land: Platforms have largely held back much more, thwarted in France, for instance, by regulated windows.

“Blue Files” (“Karpeta Urdinak”, Ander Iriarte, Spain-France)  Iriarte directs a doc investigating his father’s potential torture while in police custody. The investigations take the doc deeper into findings from Basque’s “Research project on torture and ill-treatment in the Basque Country between 1960-2014.” Produced by Gastibeltza, Filmak, and Iriarte’s own Mirokutana.

Liza Foreman Backing a film in which Johnny Depp will play French King Louis XV is what Wild Bunch International head Vincent Maraval describes as part of the risk taking that is essential to this business. In a keynote interview with CAA Media Finance’s Roeg Sutherland at San Sebastian’s first Creative Investors Conference on Monday, Maraval discussed his 23 years in the business – failing to bet on “Black Swan,” but going for it with Depp’s first film since the Amber Heard trial.  “The film [“Jeanne du Barry”] is that sometimes we need to take a risk, and this risk is much higher,” said Maraval. “We are doing Johnny Depp playing Louis XV. People said don’t do a movie with him, but we liked it. I remember the discussion we had with the producer behind it who said: ‘Do you think we are doing something stupid?’ I said: ‘Probably, but what’s left if not?”

Anna Marie de la Fuente San Sebastian’s pix-in-post showcases, which have launched notable movies – Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria” – and notable directors – Jayro Bustamante, introducing his debut “Ixcanul” – unspools in 2022, with the screenings of six WIP Latam titles taking place over Sept. 19 – 21. WIP Europe, with four titles, runs on Sept. 19 and 20.  In the mix is an awaited title from Chile, “Penal Cordillera,” directed by Felipe Carmona, produced by Dominga Sotomayor and Omar Zuñiga and sold by Luxbox, and “A Strange Path,” from Brazil’s Guto Parente, whose “The Cannibal Club,” acquired by Uncork’d Entertainment, made a stir by portraying a Brazil in which the rich literally eat the poor.