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Benito Zambrano’s “Jumping the Fence” joins Roya Sadat’s “Sima’s Song,” and Pau Calpe’s “Werewolf” in the lineup of Spanish Screenings Goes to Cannes, a selection of five pix in post which underscores the ever broadening compass – in genre, setting, protagonists, production bases and models – of film production in Spain.

“Sima’s Song,” for example, is set in 1979 Kabul, “Jumping the Fence” on the Morocco-Spain border in Africa.

Many titles, though still in post production, come laden with prizes as projects, prestige deals or rich talent. “Sima’s Song,” from Afghan director Roya Sadat, whose “A Letter to the President” was shortlisted for an Oscar, won the Taicca Award at Busan’s Asian Project Market and the Ifi-Pas Award at Mumbai’s Film Bazaar. Its producer, Alba Sotorra, was nominated for an International Emmy as a director for “The Return: Life After Isis.”

The second feature from Orr,...

Netflix has unveiled two new Spanish originals including an adaptation of a Harlan Coben story as Reed Hastings was in Madrid to open the Svod service’s first European production hub.

The digital platform has ordered El Inocente and Los Favoritos de Midas. El Inocente is a remake of Coben’s book and has been adapted for TV by Oriol Paulo. The eight-part series tells the tale of Mateo who, nine years ago, interceded in a fight and ended up becoming a murderer. Now he’s an ex-convict who takes nothing for granted. His wife, Olivia, is pregnant, and both are about to get the house of their dreams. But a shocking and inexplicable call from Olivia’s cell phone again destroys Mateo’s life for the second time.

Paulo writes alongside Jordi Vallejo and Guillem Clúa with Coben, Paulo, Belén Atienza, Sandra Hermida, Eneko Lizarraga and Jesús de la Vega...

Madrid — Netflix CEO Reed Hastings officially inaugurated the U.S. streaming giant’s Madrid Production Hub, its first European production center, on Thursday morning.

While the hub’s first three sound stages look impressively efficient, they are designed principally for TV work, not gargantuan movie blockbuster production.

So it was Netflix’s plans for Spanish production which rreally made an impact at the inauguration. Francisco Ramos, Netflix vice president original contents, revealed two new Spanish series: “El Inocente,” created by Oriol Paulo, produced by Belén Atienza and Sandra Hermida; and “Los favoritos de Midas,” co-creted by Mateo Gil, starring Luis Tosar, and produced by Adrián Guerra and Nuria Valls at Nostromo Pictures.

Based on a best-seller by Harlan Coben, written by Jordi Vallejo, Paulo and Guillém Clúa, “El inocente” turns on an ex-con, Mateo, who nine years before accidentally killed a man, who, now out of jail, and with his...

“Stay in the van. I’ll handle this,” grizzled family patriarch Abraham Guerrero instructs his two young sons at the beginning of “Gigantes,” Movistar Plus’ latest original series.

His eldest son, Daniel, hands him a wooden club. Across the street, under torrential rain, a man gets out of the car. Abraham hits him on the shins and back, and passes the club to Daniel, who lays into the man, now sprawled on the tarmac, as Tomás and Clemente watch on.

“Gigantes,” directed and co-written by Enrique Urbizu, was produced by Movistar + and Gonzalo Salazar-Simpson’s Lazona Producciones (“Spanish Affair”) and one of the banner titles that sales agent About Premium Content will launch at October’s Mipcom. It is a brutal crime-clan saga about the Guerreros, who control Spain’s cocaine trade.

But “Gigantes” is no straight mob melodrama; it focuses, as Abraham’s brutal lesson in punishment suggests,...

"One must always finish what one begins. And I will finish this." As spoken by Juliette Binoche, written by screenwriter Miguel Barros, and directed by Isabel Coixet in "Nobody Wants the Night," these are words to live by. Especially when facing the daunting prospect of writing about the grandly uninspiring "Nobody Wants the Night," a film that falls exactly in the blind spot between "mediocre" and "outright bad." But it has deeply earnest intentions, and occasionally, like a snowblind, starving person in a blizzard tripping over a carcass, it stumbles on a moment of meatiness. But the script is so unsure of itself and Coixet's direction so uneven that whenever it threatens to find its way, it soon loses it again. The title "inspired by real people," (as opposed to "based on real events" which it is not) cues up a fiction about the real-life wife of polar explorer Robert Peary,...

Blackthorn

Stars: Sam Shepard, Eduardo Noriega, Stephen Rea, Magaly Solier, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Padraic Delaney | Written by Miguel Barros | Directed by Mateo Gil

The Western is a genre that slowed to a trickle, almost vanished. Horror and Sci-fi has kept it going with cross over stories with monsters and aliens but it’s definitely a genre that has weakened over the years. Films like True Grit and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford have brought it back to life with big name stars and high quality directing leading to a slow but sure re-growth, based on more serious tales of the “wild west” one of these tales is Blackthorn.

Blackthorn looks at the idea that Butch Cassidy, now going by the name of James Blackthorn didn’t die and is in hiding in Bolivia living a carefree life on a farm where his life is taming horses and living in peace.

Elena Anaya, Antonio Banderas, The Skin I Live In No Rest For The Wicked Tops, Pedro Almodóvar Empty-Handed: Goyas 2012 Winners Best Film La Piel que habito / The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodóvar * No habrá paz para los malvados / No Rest for the Wicked, Enrique Urbizu La Voz dormida / The Sleeping Voice, Benito Zambrano Blackthorn. Sin destino / Blackthorn, Mateo Gil Best Foreign Film in the Spanish Language Boleto al paraíso (Cuba), Gerardo Chijona Miss Bala (Mexico), Gerardo Naranjo * Un cuento chino / Chinese Take-Away (Argentina), Sebastián Borensztein Violeta se fue a los cielos (Chile), Andrés Wood Best European Film Jane Eyre (United Kingdom), Cary Fukunaga Melancholia (Germany / Denmark / France), Lars von Trier * The Artist (France), Michel Hazanavicius Carnage (France), Roman Polanski Best Director Pedro Almodóvar, The Skin I Live In Benito Zambrano, The Sleeping Voice * Enrique Urbizu, No Rest for the Wicked Mateo Gil, Blackthorn Best New Director Paula Ortiz, De tu ventana a la mía...

The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) and the other nominations for the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) have been announced. The 26th Annual Goya Awards (Premios Goyas), presented by the Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences), is “Spain’s main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards.” The awards will be handed out on February 19, 2012 in Madrid, Spain.

The full listing of the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) nominations is below.

Film

La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In), Pedro Almodovar

No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked), Enrique Urbizu

La voz dormida (The Sleeping Voice), Benito Zambrano

Blackthorn. Sin destino (Blackthorn), Mateo Gil

Director

Pedro Almodovar, La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In)

Benito Zambrano, La voz dormida...

Chicago – I frankly can’t imagine how any moviegoer could favor Mateo Gil’s somber, low-key genre exercise, “Blackthorn,” over George Roy Hill’s marvelously entertaining 1969 classic, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Sure, Western buffs have often criticized Hill’s film for romanticizing its subject matter, yet there was a dark edge and tragic poignance in William Goldman’s script that earned the film its shattering ending.

Moviegoers seeking similar thrills from “Blackthorn” will be sorely disappointed. The picture is a wholly unremarkable rethinking of the Butch Cassidy legend that fails in its aspirations to leave an equally iconic imprint on the oft-mythologized tale. Miguel Barros’ script bases its premise off the conceit that Butch and Sundance’s death in the 1908 Bolivian standoff was based on unsubstantiated evidence. It’s an intriguing premise, but Barros just uses it as an excuse to concoct a less whimsical retread of Goldman’s formula.

Blackthorn [Blu-ray] Movie: Disc: Click here to read the dvd review! "Mateo Gil and screenwriter Miguel Barros want you to forget all about that image, re-imagining the event with Cassidy surviving, reinventing himself down the road as James Blackthorne. It's been marketed almost like a sequel that could never live up to its predecessor, but taken as a sovereign entity, Blackthorn is a beautiful new take on the legendary bandit that disregards the past and assigns Cassidy moralistic hindsight in his golden years."...

Chicago – Western buffs have often criticized George Roy Hill’s 1969 classic, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” for romanticizing its subject matter to the point where it felt less concerned about its titular criminals and more interested in the friendship between stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Yet for all of the charm in William Goldman’s script, there was an underlying darkness and tragic poignance that allowed the final act to pack an unforgettable punch.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Moviegoers seeking similar thrills from “Blackthorn” will be sorely disappointed. It’s an unremarkable low-key rethinking of the Butch Cassidy legend, devoid of the whimsy and excitement that made the Newman/Redford film such a kick. Though it certainly isn’t an embarrassing misfire like 1979’s regrettable “Butch and Sundance: The Early Years,” it fails in its aspirations to leave an equally iconic imprint of the oft-mythologized tale. It mainly serves as an...

It’s obvious from the start where Blackthorn is going; given the grim, elegiac cynicism of modern Westerns, which these days all seem to be mourning the demise of an old way of life rather than celebrating or even just comfortably exploring the past, there’s only one possible ending for a story about the redemptive power of friendship. Which means it’s up to director Mateo Gil (screenwriter of Abre Los Ojos and The Sea Inside) and writer Miguel Barros to make the execution count. And they do so ably. Blackthorn could use more depth and less of a ...

Chicago – In our latest western edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two movie passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “Blackthorn” starring Sam Shepard as the legendary Butch Cassidy!

“Blackthorn,” which was a selection at the Tribecca Film Festival, also stars Eduardo Noriega, Stephen Rea, Magaly Solier, Dominique McElligott, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Padraic Delaney, Daniel Aguirre, Luis Bredow, Fernando Gamarra, Maria Luque and Cristian Mercado from director Mateo Gil and writer Miguel Barros. The film opens on Oct. 14, 2011 in Chicago.

To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “Blackthorn” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This advance screening is on Monday, Oct. 10, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. in Chicago. Directions to enter this HollywoodChicago.com Hookup and win can be found beneath the graphic below.

The movie poster for “Blackthorn” starring Sam Shepard as Butch Cassidy.

Image credit:...

Title: Blackthorn Directed By: Mateo Gil Written By: Miguel Barros Cast: Sam Shepard, Eduardo Noriega, Stephen Rea, Magaly Solier, Nicolak Coster-Waldau, Padraic Delaney, Dominique McElligott Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 8/24/11 Opens: October 7, 2011, On Demand September 2, 2011 One of the more fascinating guesses that historians are wont to pursue is wondering whether certain famous or notorious people are still alive, though presumed dead. When I started teaching high-school history, the question was: “My grandmother says that Hitler is still alive. Is that true?” Not wanting to cause grandparent-teacher problems, I suggested that since the body had not been necessarily found, anything is possible. Now that Hitler is 112...

The Tribeca Film Festival claimed another acquisition deal for its titles when Magnolia Pictures picked up the Butch Cassidy Western Blackthorn. According to Deadline, Mateo Gil directed Sam Shepard, Stephen Rea, Eduardo Noriega and Nicolaj Coster-Waldeau from a script about Cassidy’s final days by Miguel Barros. Blackthorn premiered at Tribeca last week along with The Union, Cameron Crowe's documentary about Elton John's collaboration with Leon Russell and the comedy Jesus Henry Christ. The Tribeca Film Festival celebrated its tenth birthday this year after co-founders Jane Rosenthal, Craig Hatkoff and Robert De Niro started the event to help energize New York in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Tribeca Film Festival claimed another acquisition deal for its titles when Magnolia Pictures picked up the Butch Cassidy Western Blackthorn. According to Deadline, Mateo Gil directed Sam Shepard, Stephen Rea, Eduardo Noriega and Nicolaj Coster-Waldeau from a script about Cassidy’s final days by Miguel Barros. Blackthorn premiered at Tribeca last week along with The Union, Cameron Crowe's documentary about Elton John's collaboration with Leon Russell and the comedy Jesus Henry Christ. The Tribeca Film Festival celebrated its tenth birthday this year after co-founders Jane Rosenthal, Craig Hatkoff and Robert De Niro started the event to help energize New York in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Tribeca Film Festival claimed another acquisition deal for its titles when Magnolia Pictures picked up the Butch Cassidy Western Blackthorn. According to Deadline, Mateo Gil directed Sam Shepard, Stephen Rea, Eduardo Noriega and Nicolaj Coster-Waldeau from a script about Cassidy’s final days by Miguel Barros. Blackthorn premiered at Tribeca last week along with The Union, Cameron Crowe's documentary about Elton John's collaboration with Leon Russell and the comedy Jesus Henry Christ. The Tribeca Film Festival celebrated its tenth birthday this year after co-founders Jane Rosenthal, Craig Hatkoff and Robert De Niro started the event to help energize New York in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Tribeca Film Festival claimed another acquisition deal for its titles when Magnolia Pictures picked up the Butch Cassidy Western Blackthorn. According to Deadline, Mateo Gil directed Sam Shepard, Stephen Rea, Eduardo Noriega and Nicolaj Coster-Waldeau from a script about Cassidy’s final days by Miguel Barros. Blackthorn premiered at Tribeca last week along with The Union, Cameron Crowe's documentary about Elton John's collaboration with Leon Russell and the comedy Jesus Henry Christ. The Tribeca Film Festival celebrated its tenth birthday this year after co-founders Jane Rosenthal, Craig Hatkoff and Robert De Niro started the event to help energize New York in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to Blackthorn, a Western about the final days of Butch Cassidy. Pic stars Sam Shepard, Stephen Rea, Eduardo Noriega and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau. Mateo Gil directed it from script by Miguel Barros. Ibon Cormenzana and Andres Santana produced. Pic premiered last week in downtown Manhattan and will debut in the Market at Cannes next month.

After a 12-year absence (“Nadie Conoce A Nadie” aka Nobody Knows Anybody), Alejandro Amenábar's longtime collaborator Mateo Gil has officially returned to his directing duties. His comeback film “Blackthorn” which is a western starring Eduardo Noriega (“Thesis”) and American playwright and actor Sam Shepard has been named to the Tribeca Film Festival's World Narrative section line-up. The western written by Miguel Barros and shot in Bolivia, revolves around the legendary Butch Cassidy whom, after twenty years later after his supposed death and under the new name of James Blackthorn teams up with a spanish mine robber. This is a co-production between Spain, France and Bolivia. Gil is a well renowned screenwriter in Spain where he is remembered for his script collaborations for Alejandro Amenábar´s films such as “Thesis”, “Open Your Eyes”, Oscar winner “The Sea Inside” and recently “Ágora”. He debuted in 1999 with the box office hit thriller...

Tribeca Film Festival has announced the line up of this years competition categories, including World Narrative Feature, World Documentary Feature, and the brand new Viewpoints which highlights eleven independent features and nine documentaries.

Tribeca Film Festival is one of leading film festivals located in New York City, showcasing many films not screened in any other U.S. film festival along with forty three world premieres and fifty four directorial debuts. Cameron Crowe’s premier of his concert documentary, The Union, will start the festival followed by a performance by Elton John. The rest of the lineup will be announced March 14th, and look out for coverage of the festival in April. Below you can find the complete press release on the lineup.

10th Tribeca Film Festival Announces World Narrative

And Documentary Competition Selections, And New Viewpoints Section

Tribeca Expands Awards Scope

2011 Festival to Present 88 Feature-Length and 61 Short Films April 20 – May...

The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival (April 20-May 1) on Monday announced the first 44 feature films of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival slate, comprising the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections, and one new section: Viewpoints.

In a record year for submissions, the 2011 film slate was chosen from a field of 5,624 entries. Tff 2011 will include feature films from 32 countries, including 43 world premieres, 10 international premieres, 19 North American premieres, seven U.S. Premieres and nine New York premieres.

“It’s our 10th Tribeca Film Festival, and in our relatively brief existence we have evolved dramatically,” said Tff executive director Nancy Schafer in a statement. “The festival has become an integral part of the cultural landscape of New York City as well as a globally recognized platform for storytelling.”

A complete list of the films announced Monday follows, with descriptions provided by the festival.

World Narrative Features

“Angel’s Crest”

Directed by Gaby Dellal

Written by Catherine Trieschmann

(UK,...

The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival (April 20-May 1) on Monday announced the first 44 feature films of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival slate, comprising the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections, and one new section: Viewpoints.

In a record year for submissions, the 2011 film slate was chosen from a field of 5,624 entries. Tff 2011 will include feature films from 32 countries, including 43 world premieres, 10 international premieres, 19 North American premieres, seven U.S. Premieres and nine New York premieres.

“It’s our 10th Tribeca Film Festival, and in our relatively brief existence we have evolved dramatically,” said Tff executive director Nancy Schafer in a statement. “The festival has become an integral part of the cultural landscape of New York City as well as a globally recognized platform for storytelling.”

A complete list of the films announced Monday follows, with descriptions provided by the festival.

World Narrative Features

“Angel’s Crest”

Directed by Gaby Dellal

Written by Catherine Trieschmann

(UK,...

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival revealed the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections for the 10th annual Tff, which will be held April 20 to May 1 in lower Manhattan.

In addition, Tff organizers unveiled the first edition of the new section — Viewpoints.

Forty-four of the 88 feature-length films that will screen during the fest have been announced. Much more information on each title can be found below.

“It’s our tenth Tribeca Film Festival, and in our relatively brief existence we have evolved dramatically,” said Nancy Schafer, Executive Director of the Tribeca Film Festival. “The Festival has become an integral part of the cultural landscape of New York City as well as a globally recognized platform for storytelling.”

So what will screen at Tribeca this year? In part, the following:

World Narrative Feature Competition

· Angels Crest, directed by Gaby Dellal, written by Catherine Trieschmann. (UK, Canada) – World Premiere.

And the festival beat marches on… nothing on this list immediately jumps out at me… no titles I recognize. These are just the World Narrative and Documentary competition selections, so, there’ll be more announcements made later. I do see representation from South Africa, Egypt and Rwanda. As I always do, I’ll be taking a closer look at the lineup for any titles worth profiling on this website. The festival runs from April 20th to May 1st. It’s in my backyard, so you know I’ll be covering it!

For now, here’s the full press release:

New York, NY [March 7, 2011] – The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by American Express®, today announced the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections and the first edition of the new section—Viewpoints. Forty-three of the 87 feature-length films were announced. The 10th edition of the Festival will take place from April 20 to May 1 in lower Manhattan.

The Tribeca Film Festival announced selections for its World Narrative, World Documentary, and Viewpoints competitions at its 10th annual event, running from April 20 to May 1 in New York. Eighty-eight features (such as Angels Crest, with Jeremy Piven) and 61 short films from 32 different countries were selected from more than 5,600 submissions to screen at the festival. “In programming the Festival this year we had to make some incredibly difficult decisions, but we are excited about the quality, ingenuity, risk-taking and diversity of this year’s program,” David Kwok, Director of Programming, said in a statement. “We are particularly proud that we have...

Getty Robert DeNiro

The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, which will run from April 20 to May 1 in lower Manhattan, has announced the films that will play in this year’s World Narrative and Documentary Competition film categories, which are both competition sections. The also named the films that will will play in its new, out-of-competition section “Viewpoints.”

Now in its tenth year, this year’s festival features movies from 32 different counties and 99 different filmmakers, who were selected from a pool of 5,624 entries.