Movie News from Spain

Spanish actress Maribel Verdú

Málaga Film Festival's Focus is Movies Made in Spain

Isabel Coixet’s 'Tomorrow never ends' (Ayer no termina nunca), starring Javier Cámara and Candela Peña, will open the 16th edition of the Málaga Film Festival, which began yesterday, Saturday 20, 2013, and runs until April 27. The movie, about a couple who reunite in 2017 Barcelona after five difficult years apart, is one of 12 competing for the Golden Cactus Barrel (Biznaga de Oro) awarded to the best film prize this year.

Others in the running at the festival, which focuses on Spanish film, include Daniel Calparsoro’s 'Combustión' (Combustion), which narrates the complications arising from a love triangle formed by Adriana Ugarte, Álex González and Alberto Ammann, the feature debut of TV director Miguel Alcantud, dealing with the reality shock of imported young African soccer talent.

José Coronado will receive this year’s Málaga Prize, and Alex de la Iglesia will be honored with the 2013 Retrospective Prize. Mario Casas and María Valverde star in Civil War drama, 'The Mule' (La mula), which arrives without a credited director after Michael Radford disassociated himself from the troubled project. Gracia Querejeta offers up '15 Years and a Day' (15 años y un día),  in which Maribel Verdú plays the mother of a troubled teenager. Querejeta is the daughter of producer Elías Querejeta.

Read full article in English: http://tinyurl.com/cm4cmof

 

Alta Films Wrapping Permanently?

It appears the Spanish distributor of movies directed by Woody Allen, Danny Boyle, Michael Haneke, Mike Leigh, Michael Moore, Roman Polanski, Steven Soderbergh and others, is calling it quits, according to an article in El País. A few weeks ago, I read an article in a Spanish newspaper that the movie theaters in Madrid, especially on the Gran Via, are being bought, mainly with foreign money, and turned into retail stores, some big box.

Enrique González Macho, the current president of the Spanish Cinema Academy, has admitted that many Spaniards have stopped going to the cinema, the DVD retail business is a disaster because of Internet downloads and TV stations, especially since the public network no longer supports Spanish cinema or art films.

It appears Spanish Cinema could survive Francisco Franco's censorship, but not the rout by Spaniards hurting from the slide of the economy, which has had a huge impact on the Spanish Box Office. Macho is now trying to decide where he will "cut the fat," what to close, and what is worth a continuing fight to keep open.

Read the full article in English: http://tinyurl.com/bqmpphh