City Buenos Aires Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Alicia Keys is making sure to take in the sights while on her world tour. The iconic singer blessed Mexico City Wednesday night, but before taking the stage, she rode a hot air balloon and visited Aztec ruins with her husband Swizz Beatz, and their children Egypt and Genesis.

Cannes Film Festival. The distributor has acquired the rights to the film in North America, UK, Ireland, Latin America, Turkey, Italy, India, and Benelux and has plans for both a theatrical and streaming plan in the coming months.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Buenos Aires-based Meikincine has swooped on international sales rights to “The Extortion,” the biggest Argentine box office hit to date of 2023, in a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery Latin America.  “The Extortion” is backed by a pedigreed combo of Particular Crowd, part of Warner Bros. Discovery Latin America, Oscar winner Juan José Campanella’s 100 Bars, “Argentina, 1985” producer Infinity Hill and producer-service company Cimarrón Cine. Headlined by Guillermo Francella, memorable in Campanella’s Academy Award winning “The Secret in Their Eyes” and star of Pablo Trapero’s “The Clan,” “The Extortion” turns on Alejandro, a pilot with a secret. Blackmailed by sinister intelligence service agents, he is plunged into a world of intrigue and corruption from which he will battle to escape alive. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Paris-based Luxbox has snapped up sales rights on “Puan,” the awaited new film from María Alche and Benjamín Naishtat, two of Argentina’s fastest-rising directors.  The new title co-stars Leonardo Sbaraglia (“Pain and Glory,” “Wild Tales”).  “Puan” catches Alché after she won San Sebastian’s prestigious Horizontes Award in 2018 for her Visit Films-sold feature debut, “A Family Submerged,” before teaming on “Puan” with Naishat who, the same year at San Sebastian, won director, actor (Dario Grandinetti) and cinematography (Pedro Sotero) in main competition for “Rojo,” sparking a rave Variety review.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks has nabbed worldwide rights to Spanish filmmaker Chiqui Carabante’s black-comedy whodunnit “The Fortress” (“La Fortaleza”) and is debuting its trailer ahead of the Cannes Film Market. The film centers on the death of Arturo Viaplana and its aftermath as his offspring, hoping to inherit a great fortune, discover that instead of leaving them the estate, their father has devised a macabre, posthumous game in which his children must first locate his body and bury it themselves in a specified location. Working together to carry out their father’s instructions and pass a series of tests, the siblings are forced to come to terms with a deeply hidden family secret.

Global audiences have been gaga for Baba Yaga with Lionsgate/Thunder Road Films/87 Eleven’s John Wick: Chapter 4 now having passed the $400M mark worldwide.

Anna Marie de la Fuente After 25 years, Susana Gimenez, Argentina’s celebrated TV host, actress, model and entrepreneur, is set to make her hotly anticipated return to the big screen in a new Diego Kaplan (“2+2,” “My Boyfriend’s Meds”) comedy.  The still untitled film, penned by Kaplan and Pablo Minces, centers on a preeminent child psychologist who has her own struggles with her 43-year-old son who is reluctant to leave home. Principal photography is slated for October in Buenos Aires. “I can’t believe I’m making a movie after all these years; I certainly wasn’t planning for it,” said Gimenez. “But Diego is a force of nature and a visionary. When he pitched the project to me, I just couldn’t resist it and jumped right in,” she added. Aside from starring in a host of film and TV series, Gimenez hosted a top-rated talk show likened to that of Oprah Winfrey or Italy’s Raffaella Carrà.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Beijing 2022,” the official documentary about the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, has been set as the opening film of the revived Beijing International Film Festival. It is directed by noted narrative and documentary film maker Lu Chuan (“Kekexili,” “City of Life and Death” and Disney’s “Born in China”) and will have its world premiere at the festival. The festival will run April 22-29 and be based in the Huairou district which has become an out of town hub for the film industry, as well as other venues in the Chinese capital. For the past three editions the BJIFF has been held online due to disruptions caused by China’s strict anti-COVID measures.

NME have obtained an exclusive clip of Coldplay playing ‘My Universe’, taken from their upcoming live concert movie – watch it first exclusively on NME above.The footage is taken from the British rock veterans’ performances in Buenos Aires last year – and will be available to watch in full in the upcoming concert film ‘Coldplay – Music Of The Spheres: Live At River Plate’.Set for release on April 19 and 23, NME has obtained an exclusive clip from the upcoming release, showing the band performing their hit single ‘My Universe’. The Grammy-nominated track was originally released in 2021, and feautured K-pop icons, BTS.Watch the clip exclusively on NME above.In a four-star review of the song last September, NME described ‘My Universe’ as both a release that promotes “love and acceptance”, as well as “a subtle manifesto of togetherness despite the walls society might try to put up between us”.

Series Mania on March 21 just after a Spanish series, “Wrong Side of the Tracks” from Mediaset España and Alea Media, had scored 149.6 million watching hours in three weeks on Netflix for Seasons 1 and 2.  That platform connection and power of Spanish series threaded most of the series and much of the commentary at Tuesday’s Next from Spain, supported by Audiiovisual from Spain.  At least in terms of titles now ready to hit the market, there’s little sign as yet of platform pullback in Spain. Rather, it remains a ground zero in the streamer wars.

Ed Meza @edmezavar The Barcelona-set feature “La nit no fa vigília” and Argentine film “Hidden City” (“Ciudad Oculta”) won the Malaga Festival Work in Progress awards for Spanish and Latin American projects on Friday. “La nit no fa vigília” (which roughly translates to “The Night Does Not Keep Watch”) centers on a young man who lives with and cares for his aging, frail grandmother, but still finds time for a nocturnal social life. It was among the frontrunners to win at the awards ceremony. A joint project from a student collective comprising Laura Corominas Espelt, Laura Serra Solé, Clara Serrano Llorens, Gerard Simó Gimeno, Ariadna Ulldemolins Abad and Pau Vall Capdet, “La nit no fa vigília” also won the industry magazine Cine y Tele prize.

Emiliano De Pablos The Walt Disney Co.’s Star Distribution has taken Latin American distribution rights to Argentine writer-director Pablo Solarz’s coming-of-age film “Desperté con un sueño” (“I Woke Up with a Dream”) An Argentina-Uruguay co-production, teaming Buenos Aires-based Pampa Films and Aramos Cine with Montevideo’s Mutante Cine and Bocacha Films, “I Woke Up with a Dream” screened March 14 at the Málaga Film Festival’s main competition. Top Argentine producer Pablo Bossi’s Madrid-based company Gloriamundi is handling “I Woke Up with a Dream” rights outside Latin America.

Emiliano De Pablos In an early market deal at this week’s Málaga Film Festival, Guido Rud’s sales house FilmSharks has nabbed worldwide sales rights to Spanish period thriller “Olvido” (“The Forgotten Killings”). Directed by Inés París (“A mi madre le gustan las mujeres,” “La noche que mi madre mató a mi padre”) and written by Fermín P. Pina, “The Forgotten Killings” is produced by José Luis Rancaño at Madrid-based La Dalia Films.   Inés París’ “La noche que mi madre mató a mi padre,” also produced by Rancaño at La Dalia and starring Spain’s Belén Rueda and Argentina’s Diego Peretti, snagged the audience prize at the 2016 Málaga Film Festival.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Santiago Requejo has not only turned his hit short, “All in Favor,” into a theatrical play set to premiere in Buenos Aires in April, he’s also working on a feature film version. The award-winning work, which was shortlisted for this year’s live-action short film Oscar, sets the scene with a friendly meeting of apartment owners discussing a new elevator that becomes increasingly tense when they find out one of the neighbors has rented his flat to a work colleague with mental health issues. The stage adaptation, which Requejo co-wrote with Javier Lorenzo and Raul Barranco, begins with the story depicted in the short film and expands its. The play (titled “Votemos” in Argentina rather than “Votamos” as in Spain) premieres April 6 at the Teatro Metropolitan in Buenos Aires.

Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker has said that he still plans to go ahead with their upcoming live shows after fracturing his hip.The Australian musician and vocalist shared the news of his injury on Instagram, posting a series of pictures of him in hospital along with x-rays which show screws in his bones and post-surgery stitches.“Fractured my hip,” he began the post. “Tried to run a half marathon on what turned out to be an existing stress fracture.

Coldplay have announced a cinema presentation of a ‘Music Of The Spheres’ concert film.The film was recorded across the band’s sold-out ten-night run at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, which took place in October 2022. It was originally streamed worldwide at the tail end of last year.Per a press release, the cinema presentation will feature remixed / remastered sound and visuals, captured using 30 cameras, racing drones and 360° filming techniques by BAFTA-winning and Grammy-nominated director Paul Dugdale.The film also includes a host of footage that wasn’t shown during the live broadcast, when it screened in  81 countries.

Naman Ramachandran A film of Coldplay’s sold-out 10-night concert run at Buenos Aires’ River Plate stadium in 2022 will get a worldwide release in April from Trafalgar Releasing. The concert was part of the band’s “Music Of The Spheres” world tour, which sold more than six million tickets. The film, “Coldplay – Music Of The Spheres: Live At River Plate,” is the director’s cut of the Oct. 28, 2022 worldwide live broadcast of the show across 81 countries. It will feature remixed/remastered sound and visuals captured using 30 cameras, racing drones and 360° filming techniques, by BAFTA-winning and Grammy-nominated director Paul Dugdale.

Emiliano De Pablos Buenos Aires-based production outfit Mil Monos is teaming with writer-director Pablo Agüero (“Primera nieve,” “Akelarre”) and writer-creator Nicolás Britos (“Limbo,” “Pibas en orsai”) to develop dystopian coming-of-age thriller series project “Decibel.” Produced by Mil Monos’ Maximiliano Monzón, “Decibel” is currently at pilot script stage, and a shoot start is planned by January 2024, tentatively in Argentina. Written by Britos, the eight-episode, half-hour thriller follows five deaf teenagers born in a mountainous region. When The Hum, a sound that transforms every person who can hear it into a frenzied killer, is unleashed, their deafness makes them immune.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks has inked a three genre-pic production deal with the HJ Production banner of Hugo Cardozo, writer-director-producer of 2019 Paraguayan hit “Morgue.” Paraguay-based René Ruiz Díaz, CEO of Urban Achievers, is also partnering on the deal. Díaz produced “Gold Seekers” from “7 Cajas” director Juan Carlos Maneglia. First pic up in the pact is Spanish-language “Do Not Enter” (“No Entres”), now in post, a found-footage shock fest that FilmSharks founder Guido Run will introduce to buyers at Berlin’s European Film Market by way of a teaser trailer.  It records how two young YouTubers break into a sinister mansion, which is said to be haunted.   

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Ester Expósito, one of the stars of Netflix’s global hit “Elite,” is attached to star in “The Wailing” (“El Llanto”), co-written by Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s regular co-scribe Isabel Peña (“The Beasts”) and directed by talent-to-track Pedro Martín-Calero (“Secrets”). It’s one of the biggest Spanish-language packages being brought onto Berlin’s European Film Market. Catapulted into global stardom by “Elite,” an Instagram video of Espósito dancing to reggaeton track “El Efecto” snagged 93 million views.  The movie has gone into production, shooting in Madrid, Buenos Aires and La Plata. Film Factory Entertainment has acquired international rights. 

Málaga Work in Progress, an Málaga Festival industry centerpiece where productions such as “The Platform” first saw the light of day. Playing in Malaga WIP, “The Platform” was acquired by Latido Film which sold the title to Netflix at Toronto. It has gone on to rank as the third most-watched non-English movie ever on Netflix.    At least three titles – Spanish road movie “Devil Dog Road,” horror pic “The Hidden City,” the neo-noir “Foremost by Night” – boast genre gristle. Some titles turn on gender oppression (“As Neves”), female self-discovery (“Mara’s Vacation”) or sexual diversity (“I Trust You”). Many, especially from Spain, have social-issue overtones.  

“Till” is sixth on the box office charts after expanding to 2,058 theaters, grossing just $2.8 million for a per-theater average of $1,366 and a running total of $3.6 million. The good news for Chinonye Chukwu’s true-story drama about the murder of Emmett Till is that critical and audience praise has been overwhelming, with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score and an A+ on CinemaScore.

The Duchess of Sussex has discussed her stint as a “briefcase girl” on the US version of Deal or No Deal, saying it made her feel “forced to be all looks and little substance.”

Anna Marie de la Fuente Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks Int’l has snapped up worldwide rights to Portugal’s first stop motion animated feature “My Grandfather’s Demons,” the debut animated pic by Nuno Beato. According to FilmSharks CEO Guido Rud, it was able to outbid other contenders for the toon, which had its world premiere at Annecy. “One of the hardest tasks for my acquisition team, run by Santiago Migdal, is to find a true animation gem, not only aesthetically but narratively where the use of different animation techniques makes the story fly even higher,” said Rud. 

A number of current and former Manchester United players have sent messages of support to ex-Reds defender Marcos Rojo after the Argentine suffered a serious knee injury earlier this month.