Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2015: #97. Hugh Hudson’s Altamira

Published on January 5, 2015

Altamira

Director: Hugh Hudson // Writers: Olivia Hetreed, José Luis López-Linares

Hudson, notably the director of 1981 Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire, hasn’t helmed a feature since the lambasted 2000 Kim Basinger film I Dreamed of Africa, a noted passion project for the actress. His latest, Altamira, looks to be a historical reenactment, and will hopefully prove to be Hudson’s welcome return to feature films, which is why it makes our list. Banderas will play Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, a Spanish jurist and amateur archeologist who made the discovery of the Altamira Cave with his nine-year-old daughter Maria. Featuring painting of bison, horses, a doe and human hands, made with charcoal and ochre, these were the first Paleolithic cave paintings of their type to be discovered.

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Golshifteh Farahani, Rupert Everett.

Producers: Morena Films’ Lucrecia Botín and Alvaro Longoria (7 Days in Havana), Sympathetic Ink’s Andy Paterson (The Railway Man), Mare Nostrum’s Alexandra Lebret. Executive producer: Laura Bickford (Che: Part One/Che: Part Two).

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available.

Release Date: Currently filming, Cannes is a possibility, but we’re predicting this to pop up at festivals later in the year, perhaps Toronto and/or San Sebastián.

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.