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Valladolid’s Seminci International Film Festival will host its 69th edition from October 18-26 and, along with it, the second edition of its new industry sidebar.

Below, we highlight three key events hosted under this year’s Valladolid Industry banner.

Merci Valladolid

Among the myriad of activities aimed at filmmakers, producers, buyers and sellers, this year’s industry strand will host the Merci Valladolid (Mercado de Cine Independiente Valladolid).

For three days, Oct. 23-25, Merci will serve as a meeting point for 140 screen industry business professionals, including programmers, exhibitors and distributors. Valladolid will invite the accredited professionals to screenings of 22 of the most highly anticipated releases scheduled to hit cinemas through the end of 2024 and all of 2025.

According to organizers, the screenings will help “maximize the titles’ circulation and promote a better exploitation in the run-up to their release.”

In addition to the screenings, Merci will hold a series of...

A Spanish police officer’s life is about to turn upside down as she infiltrates a dangerous lion’s den in the exclusive new teaser trailer for Arantxa Echevarría’s upcoming crime thriller “Undercover.” The film arrives in Spanish cinemas on Oct. 11 courtesy of Beta Fiction Spain.

“Undercover” is based on the real-life story of Aranzazu Berradre Marín, the pseudonym for the only police officer in Spanish history to infiltrate the terrorist organisation Eta successfully. The Basque nationalist separatist group killed over 829 people between 1968 and 2010 and injured over 22,000 until its dissolution in 2018.

The film, written by Echevarría and Amèlia Mora, takes place over the eight-year period when Marín was infiltrated and focuses on the mind-shattering fear of discovery that permeated her days during the mission.

The Goya-winning “Carmen and Lola” director reunites with Carolina Yuste, who stars as the undercover agent and plays alongside three-time Goya-winning actor Luis Tosar.

Vicente Canales’ Film Factory has acquired international rights to Arantxa Echevarría’s action thriller Undercover.

It is being produced by Santiago Segura and María Luisa Gutiérrez’s Bowfinger International Pictures in partnership with Beta Fiction Spain (Bfs), and Álvaro Esto también Pasará, with backing from Movistar Plus+, Atresmedia and broadcaster Eitb.

Carolina Yuste and Luis Tosar are starring in the film which is now in production. It is based on the story of the 20 year old woman who was the only member of the national police force who managed to infiltrate the Basque terrorist group, Eta and helped to dismantle it.

Barcelona-based indie studio Filmax has nabbed international sales rights to Joaquín Mazón’s “The Night My Dad Saved Christmas,” starring Spain’s king of comedy Santiago Segura (”Father There Is Only One”) and Ernesto Sevilla (“I Can Quit Whenever I Want”).

A Spain-Mexico co-production, the film teams Spain’s tax incentive structure La Navidad en Sus Manos Aie with three of Spain’s most successful film production companies: Nadie Es Perfecto, Esto También Pasará Producciones and Bowfinger International Pictures.

The family comedy, scripted by Francisco Arnal and Daniel Monedero, is set in the days leading up to Christmas, when Santa – played by Segura – has an accident on his sleigh, right in the middle of Madrid, and ends up in hospital, where he will have to stay until after Christmas.

Fortunately, Salva, the guy he’s sharing a room with at the hospital, is willing to step in and take on his all important Christmas work.

“Lobo Feroz,” the latest film from “La Casa Muda” director Gustavo Hernández, has sold to getting on half the world, underscoring the market punch of high-profile genre movies from name directors.

Sold by FilmSharks International, “Lobo Feroz” has closed Australia and New Zealand (Palace Film), the U.S. and Spanish-speaking Latin America (ViX) and Russia/Cis (Nashe Kino).

A Spanish-language remake of Israel’s “Big Bad Wolves,” “Lobo Feroz” has also a licensed Taiwan (Av-Jet Intl. Media), Eastern Europe (AMC for TV/SVOD) and Uruguay (Alvaro Caso-Enec Cine).

The Palace, Nashe Kino, Av-Jet and Enec deals all have a theatrical component, said FilmSharks’ Guido Rud. France, Italy, Japan, Korea and Germany/Gas are in discussions, he added.

Produced by longterm Hernández partner Ignacio García Cucucovich at Uruguay’s Mother Superior, María Luisa Gutiérrez at Bowfinger International Pictures, and Rud at FilmSharks, “Lobo Feroz” has already opened in Spain via Filmax and Netflix,...

Exclusive: FilmSharks has acquired world rights to Spanish horror pic The Boogeyman: The Origin of the Myth (El Hombre Del Saco) and locked a series of key international deals out of Cannes.

In a deal negotiated at the Fantastic Pavilion, Mantícora has picked up all rights for Latin America, the U.S and and Canada for what we hear is a six-figure sum. The deal was negotiated by José Luis Mejía Razo from Mantícora and Guido Rud, Federico Pascua and Matias Fontenla of FilmSharks.

In addition, Amazon’s Prime Video has acquired Spanish SVOD rights, and Antena 3 grabbed free-tv rights.

Directed by Ángel Gómez Hernández from a screenplay by Juma Fodde (You shall Not Sleep), Ignacio García Cucucovich Ángel Gómez Hernández (Voces) and Gustavo Hernández (The Silent House), the film follows a group of teenagers who discover that the terrifying legend of The Bogeyman is real after the mysterious...

Bowfinger Int’l Pictures, run by Spanish actor-director Santiago Segura and producing partner María Luisa Gutiérrez, and Beta Fiction Spain (Bfs), the Spanish affiliate of Germany’s Beta Film, have teamed up to produce “Infiltrada” (“Infiltrated”) the true story of a young Spanish policewoman who infiltrated the Basque separatist group, Eta.

To be directed by Bilbao-based helmer Arantxa Echevarría, the feature film based on true events follows the 20-year old policewoman, known only by her alias Aranzazu Berradre Marín, who managed to embed herself with members of the terrorist group, even sharing living quarters with them.

Eventually, she helped lead to the dismantling of the infamous organization that used terrorist tactics in its campaign for an independent Basque state.

Based on extensive research that included the collaboration of journalists and interviews with people who were directly involved in the operation, “Infiltrada” will depict not only the events but will also...

“Lobo Feroz” (“Ferocious Wolves”), the Spanish-language remake of Israeli revenge thriller “Big Bad Wolves” by Uruguay’s Gustavo Hernandez, is launching its trailer exclusively with Variety, ahead of its Jan. 27 Spanish theatrical release via Filmax.

The mordant revenge thriller follows a detective as he tracks a suspected child killer, a former religious studies teacher who was arrested for the crime, but later released due to a clerical error. The detective eventually teams up with the mother of the most recent victim to mete out justice the law seems unable to provide.

Trailer opens with the detective slamming the suspect’s head against a pool table as he draws parallels with the “Little Red Riding Hood” fairy tale about the little girl who goes into the woods alone and comes across the big bad wolf.

Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s original “Big Bad Wolves” was hailed by Quentin Tarantino as...

Following the successful path plowed by the first part of the saga, Madrid-based Latido Films has taken international sales rights outside Spain and Latin America to “A todo tren 2” (“The Kids Are Alright 2”), the latest family comedy from “Torrente” creator-star Santiago Segura, one of the biggest comedic talents in the Spanish-speaking world.

Released Dec. 2 in Spain by Warner Bros. Pictures, the new comedy adventure has maintained the audience interest of its predecessor, leading box office charts with €2.9 million (3.1 million) and 469,470 viewers after two weeks.

The film toplines this time Paz Vega and Paz Padilla playing respectively Clara and Susana.

In the story, a year ago Ricardo (Segura) was the chosen parent to take all the kids, accompanied by grandfather Felipe (Leo Harlem), to a summer camp, but unfortunately get locked outside the train leaving the children inside. This time round, Clara, the mother, doesn’t trust them and decides to...

One of the biggest challenges facing independent production around the world is how, coming out of pandemic, streaming finance and state funding can be made to mesh in new regulatory terms.

Nowhere currently is this issue proving more fraught than in Spain, as it attempts to transpose into national law Europe’s celebrated Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which can oblige global streamers to invest in a country’s national production, as has happened in France and will be case in Spain.

Currently, Spain’s draft law requires networks and local and global platforms to plow 5 of annual revenues into European titles, 3.5 off that in works from independent Spanish producers, of which 2 are accounted for by movies and 1.5 by films.

Loud alarm bells rang, however, when its industry bodies discovered a last-minute change to Spain’s draft General Audiovisual Communication Law, now in consideration in Spain’s Congress, which affects the definition of an independent producer.