John Hopewell: Last News

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Mexico’s Talipot Studio, a co-producer on Ruben Östlund’s triple Oscar nominee “Triangle of Sadness,” has boarded “Malinche,” a historical epic produced by Spain’s Morena Films and directed by Pablo Trapero (“The Clan,” “ZeroZeroZero”). Prestigious Mexican historian Enrique Krauze also produces.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent One of France’s foremost doc feature producers, Paris-based Les Films d’ici, has boarded “Who We Are” (“Qui som”). A buzz title at Berlin’s Spain in Focus showcase, “Who We Are” is being presented by its Spanish producers Materia Cinema, which co-financed Ira Sachs’ Sundance/Berlin player “Peter Hujar’s Day,” and Avalon, behind Berlin 2022 Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs.” Les Films d’ici also co-produces out of France, while Spain’s Foundation La Caixa serves as an associate producer.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Over the last six years, thanks in the main to the SVOD revolution, Spain, once known for select auteurs – Pedro Almodóvar, J.A. Bayona, Fernando Trueba – has stepped fully onto the world stage as a European film and TV power. Appropriately then, Spain is the Country in Focus 2025 at Berlin Festival’s European Film Market.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Rapidly building a packed sales slate at Berlin, Filmax has pounced on “Leo & Lou,” a feel-good road movie set against the stunning, windswept landscapes of Galicia in northern Spain and produced by Zeta Studios, producer of Netflix hit “Elite.” Filmax will unveil first-look images at Berlin’s European Film Market. In the film, Leo, described as a mute young orphan girl with a world of thoughts inside her, and Lou, a jaded, middle-aged nihilist, take a journey together.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Arte/ZDF, the German arm of European public broadcaster Arte, and German production company Port au Prince have boarded “Ivan & Hadoum,” the feature debut of Ian de la Rosa, one of Spain’s top emerging talents. Now casting, “Ivan & Hadoum,” will be presented Friday at the EFM’s Spain in Focus Showcase by Emilia Fort at Avalon, one of the film’s Spanish producers.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent In a key strategic move and following some of the smart TV money in these current times, New Regency has partnered with Bravado Equity to drive into Europe, making its first European series acquisition “Beyond” (aka “Oderbruch”), one of the standout recent TV hits in Europe. New Regency will launch “Beyond” at the London TV Screenings, its market debut taking place for invited guests on Feb.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Always a frontrunner, “Black Crab” scribe Pelle Rådström has won Göteborg’s Nordic Series Script Award for his screenplay of “Pressure Point,” a tense, involved and compelling three-part miniseries on the build up to murders which shook Sweden to its core. The winner was announced at an awards ceremony on Jan.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “The Talent,” a glitzy party-set psychological thriller toplining Ester Expósito, one of the biggest breakouts of “Elite” stars, will be brought onto the market at Berlin by Spain’s Film Factory Entertainment. Handling many of Spain’s biggest non-global streamer movies, Film Factory has acquired worldwide rights to “The Talent”outside Spain.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Ikusmira Berriak, the San Sebastian-based development program behind Cannes Directors’ Fortnight hits “The Water” and “Creatura” and Sundance standout “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” has announced six projects for its 2025 residency program, as the initiative soars in popularity, applications sky-rocketing 34% to 487 for this current year. Reasons for that cut several ways.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Kate Del Castillo’s Cholawood Productions has signed a first-look deal with The Mediapro Studio US & Canada. Revealed by JC Acosta, head of TMS US & Canada, during a panel at Miami’s Content Americas, the arrangement grants The Mediapro Studio the exclusive first look and option to develop and produce all of Cholawood’s scripted and unscripted projects. Projects will be in Spanish or English or both and across all different types of genres.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent MIAMI — Colombia and Mexico-based TIS Studios has boarded the Gaumont USA-produced “Futuro Desierto,” Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo’s six-episode near-future psychological thriller and family drama which explores big questions sparked by Artificial Intelligence. Also, it looks to do what Lucía Puenzo does best: Enroll a propulsive genre momentum to ask highly relevant personal questions, here focused via a familia drama, about modern-day society.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent MIAMI — The best thing about the Miami Hilton Downtown is its vistas from above Biscayne Bay and opposite the city’s iconic serried strip of high-rises. Delegates at Content Americas, which begins its third edition this Monday, will be hoping that the market will afford an equally panoramic view of the international TV business. That’s crucial.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Luiz Toledo, the formerly highly active director of investments and strategic partnerships at Spcine, the São Paulo Film Commission, has launched Filomena Productions, a private sector consultancy which aims to help supply missing links between burgeoning audiovisual hubs in Brazil, Latin America and the global South and established international markets. A mover and shaker on the São Paulo film-TV scene, Toledo was one of the architects of a pioneering Sao Paulo cash rebate for foreign and international Brazilian shoots – launched by São Paulo City Hall in 2019 and also embraced by São Paulo state from 2023 in a newly fortified edition.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Thomas Vinterberg‘s “Families Like Ours,” “Pressure Point” from the writer of “Black Crab” and Erik Poppe’s “Quisling” count among nominations for a high-powered Göteborg Nordic Series Script Award, the biggest plaudit for TV screenwriting in Scandinavia. Replacing the Göteborg Festival’s Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize, the Script Award nominations also take in feminist porn comedy “Money Shot,” a Canneseries winner, and “The School of Housewives,” co-written and directed by Iceland’s Arnór Pálmi Arnarson, who helmed “The Minister,” starring Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Leading Spanish production house Morena Films is teaming with A Contracorriente Films, one of Spain’s top indie distributors, and “The Beasts” French co-producer Noodle Productions to produce “Fairy Queen” (“Reina de las Hadas,” “Reina de les fades” in Catalan), a feature inspired by “Paris 70” which was shortlisted on Dec. 17 for the 97th Oscars. A Contracorriente Films will handle theatrical distribution in Spain.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Marisa Paredes, a grand dame of Spanish cinema, died on Tuesday in Madrid from heart failure. She was 78.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Madrid-based Álvaro Brechner, “one of the leading South American screen talents to emerge in the last decade,” Variety wrote in a review of his Venice-selected “A Twelve-Year Night,” is attached to direct “Mägo de Oz, La Película” a big-scale bio of the Spanish folk metal band. Behind Cannes Critics’ Week player “Bad Day to Go Fishing,” sales hit “Mr Kaplan” and the Venice-selected “A Twelve-Year Night,” all Oscar entries from Uruguay, Brechner will initiate principal photography on March 17.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent TV powerhouse Beta Film has closed a weighty deal with Australian public broadcaster Special Broadcasting Service. (SBS) Totalling nearly 200 hours of entertainment, the deal is led by RAI 2023 event series “Elsa Morante’s La Storia,” recently sold to the U.S.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — “As a meeting place, Ventana Sur was fantastic, the sales agent presence was good, focused on companies which really do buy, and the organization was impecable, run by highly dedicated and nice people,” said Antonio Saura, at Madrid-based sales agency Latido Films. Most other attendees would buy into that.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent One of the most active of sales agents at this week’s Ventana Sur, Madrid-based Latido Films has closed international rights on adventure-comedy “Small Town” (“Pueblo Chico”) a parable of greed and instance of the building scale and ambition of Latin American animation co-production whether regional or reaching out to Spain. The subject of a Ventana Sur panel on Wednesday, “Small Town,” long in the works, marks the comeback of Uruguay’s Walter Tournier (“Selkirk”), one of the most veteran of Latin American animation directors whose career stretches back to 1972’s cut-out animated short “In the Forest There Is Much to Do” and takes in Uruguay’s first animated feature, “Selkirk.” In “Small Town,” a winner at Ventana Sur’s 2017’s Animation! which segued to a 2018 Animation! Focus at Annecy’s Mifa’s market, Tournier co-directs with another acknowledged Latin American master of stop-motion animation, Brazil’s Quirino winner Cesar Cabral (“Angeli the Killer,” “Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People”).

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Argentina’s newly created Fondosa Foundation, launched by lawyer-producer Virginia Juárez, is teaming with Brazilian philanthropic org Projeto Paradiso, a mover and shaker on Brazil’s young talent scene, to launch a new program aimed at providing world-class mentorship to women screenwriters. The program will back the development of one screenplay from Brazil and another from Argentina. The program aims to enrol as screenplay mentors some of Argentina’s foremost writers or writer-directors.