Italy’s Mediaset Acquires ‘Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake’ from Spain’s Filmax (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comEmiliano De Pablos Media giant Mediaset has acquired Italian distribution rights to Spanish writer-director Benito Zambrano’s drama “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake,” produced and sold by Barcelona-based studio Filmax.News of the deal comes just before Filmax screens “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” to buyers at this year’s online European Film Market.Described as high-quality cinema for adults and predominantly female audiences, “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” adapts the novel of the same title by screenwriter and casting specialist Cristina Campos.
It has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide.A member of Spain’s generation of directors that broke out in the 1990s, helping Spanish movies find far larger favor with audiences at home, Zambrano’s breakout debut, 1999’s “Alone,” won the Panorama Audience Award at Berlin.
He has gone on to make three more features – 2005’s “Havana Blues,” 2011’s “The Sleeping Voice” and 2019’s “Out in the Open” – earning two screenplay Goyas, as well as a San Sebastian best actress Silver Shell for María León’s performance in “The Sleeping Voice.”Both Zambrano and Campos, authors of “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake’s” script, are nominated for best adapted screenplay at the 2022 Goya Awards.Produced by Filmax and Luxembourg’s Deal Productions (“Flatland,” “High Fantasy”), the film is a second-chance drama turning on two sisters, Anna and Marina.Separated as teens, they’ll meet to sell a bakery in Majorca that they’ve inherited from a mysterious benefactor.
Neither are happy in life. Anna is locked in a loveless marriage; Marina travels the world as an NGO doctor, a lonely existence.
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