World Film Report Spain: Anticipated Releases in Gimenez’s Yellow and Chapero Jackson’s Verbo

Spain Film Scene: Local

The world of Spanish film press got smoking hot over the past couple of weeks with the announcement of some big projects that will start production fairly soon really soon and the first release of marketing material for some of this year’s most expected films.

Two production companies dominated the flow of news, Telecinco Cinema and Filmax. The latter announced that two more entries on the [REC] franchise are in development status, [REC] Apocalipsis will close the series and will have Jaume Balagueró returning as director while Paco Plaza and Luis Berdejo (The New Daughter) will return to give form to the script, the film has a release date set for the fall of 2012. On the other hand, [REC] Genesis, which will be released in this case a year prior, will be a prequel that will explore the origin of the infection as well as the figure of the mysterious Medeiros girl and will have Paco Plaza both writing and directing.

As for Balagueró, Filmax has released the first international official poster for his new film once known as “Flatmate” and now retitled “Sleep Tight”. The psychological thriller tells the story of César, who works as a doorman at a Barcelona apartment building and who starts stalking a successful young tenant named Clara, driven by the envy of her happy-go-lucky life.

Xavi Giménez, a respected director of photography (Ágora) who collaborated with the company in several occasions (Transsiberian, The Machinist) has been given directing duties for the first time with Yellow. This drama, about a single father who enrolls his problematic son in an educational center that uses extreme treatments to realign the personality of its patients, is currently finishing principal photography and will be released by the end of the year.

Finally the company is in charge of the international sales of two of the most awaited spanish films set to premiere at the end of the year and produced by Telecinco Cinema which has been releasing the first batch of pictures and international posters. Agnosia is the second film directed by Eugenio Mira (The Birthday), in the film, Joana Prats suffers from agnosia, a strange neuropsychological illness that affects her perception. Although her eyes and ears are in perfect condition, her brain cannot interpret the stimuli she receives through them. As the only one who knows the industrial secret left behind by her father, the enigmatic young girl will become the victim of a sinister plan to get the information out of her by taking advantage of her sensory confusion. It is said that the illness the main character suffers is not only key to the plot but also to the visual style of the film since the audience will share the same experiences than her. Apparently the promo reel shown at the last Berlinale film market already got quite a luke-warm reaction. The film stars Eduardo Noriega (Abre los Ojos, Transsiberian) and Bárbara Goenaga (Timecrimes).

On the other hand Verbo, is the first long feature film by prestigious short film director Eduardo Chapero Jackson, his short “Alumbramiento” won top prizes for best short film at the Venice Film Festival and the European Film Academy Awards. The heavy special effects driven film is a fable where “reality and imagination are each other´s creators and both are essential to the whole”, in the words of the director “One of my objectives in making VERBO was to create a cinematographic replica of those children´s picture books with rhymes…”

Putting those two companies aside for a moment, the production company Rodar y Rodar teamed up once again with Guillermo Del Toro and Belén Rueda as the leading actress after their success with The Orphanage to produce Guillém Morales (El Habitante Incierto) second film Los Ojos De Julia. The film, which is creating a lot of expectation due to the high box office venue and critical acclaimed of their previous collaboration, is yet another horror thriller in which Julia, who is slowly losing sight, investigates the mysterious death of her blind sister while confronting the same terrors that haunted her twin sibling. The film co stars Lluís Homar (”The Broken Embraces”) and the first trailer has just been released while the opening date has been set for October 29th.

Spain Film Scene: International

Going back to Telecinco Cinema, it was announced that they will be producing The Impossible alongside Apaches Entertainment, the first english language film from J.A Bayona after his hit debut “The Orphanage”. The film will star Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts and it will be a drama about the tsunami that hit Thailand on 2004. Principal photography is set to star in august in Alicante, Spain and then move to Thailand in October.

Apaches Entertainment will be also producing Intruders, the second english language film from Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, director of “Intacto” and “28 Weeks Later”. The Spanish director has cast Clive Owen and Daniel Brühl (“Inglorious Basterds”) and shooting starts this may with locations in both Madrid and London. Enrique López Lavigne, head of Apaches Entertainment and a long time collaborator of Fresnadillo stated that “it´s a genre film that brings the possibility to explore the horrors that get born from childhood”. The film is written by Jaime Marques (Ladrones) and screenwriter and prestigious novelist Nicolás Casariego.

Mario Balarezo del Caz has written for several web-based film sites. He is a freelance film reporter and film critic based out of Madrid.