John Hopewell Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent CANNES — Framing one of the first independent series co-productions between Brazil and Portugal, Ventre Studio, Coral Europa, Canal Brasil and TVI are co-producing “Godless John,” with Brazilian acting legend Marco Nanini as John of God. Directed by Marina Person (“California”), the three-part series’ boasts a powerful Brazilian cast which has gained international recognition: Bianca Comparato,  star of Netflix hit “3%,” Karine Teles (“Second Mother”) and Antonio Saboia (“Bacurau”). Two Portuguese actresses will be confirmed shortly.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent CANNES — Ester Expósito, one of the most preeminent of breakout actors from “Elite,” is set to star in “La Isla Bonita,” a new series created by Ginesta Guindal (“Vida Perfecta,” “Elite”), produced by The Immigrant and Sabado Películas with production-distribution superindie Fremantle handling global distribution. Billed as an irreverent dramedy, “La Isla Bonita” focuses on a group of friends – party, party animal Alfonso, idealist Peter, environmentalist Sol – who share a quaint house on Ibiza, until the owner decides to triple the rent for the summer months, forcing them to find an ingenious solution to keep their lives and home together. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent CANNES  —  Paramount+ has revealed a premiere date – Nov. 3 – as well as trailer and key art for “Bosé,” a biopic of the famed Spanish singer-songwriter Miguel Bosé which is shaping up as one of Spain’s biggest and most anticipated series of 2022.  Shared in exclusivity with Variety, the trailer, like the version glimpsed at Iberseries in one of that market’s biggest sneak peeks, captures Bosé’s art – a mix between David Bowie glam and sexual ambiguity and softer Italian melody.  It also drive into what looks like the emotional heart and narrative structure of the story, showing Miguel Bosé (played by Iván Sánchez and José Pastor), in a present-day timeline during the promotion of his multi-platinum album “Papito,” as he debates becoming a father. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Fremantle has acquired international distribution rights to “East Side,” the latest series from “Shtisel” producer Abot Hameiri, starring Yehuda Levi, a Series Mania 2022 best actor winner for “Fire Dance.” Taking 100% ownership of Abot Hameiri last year, Fremantle, which also co-financed the series, will bring “East Side” onto the  market at this next week’s Mipcom trade fair and conference in Cannes. To debut on Israel’s Kan 11 channel, “East Side” turns on Momi,  a former Israeli secret service agent hired to take over a Palestinian neighbourhood, one home at a time. He attempts one last sale in order to set up for life his 18-year-old daughter Maya who is on the autism spectrum. The challenge is to wrestle ownership of a grand hotel which dominates entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City. Whoever controls the entrance controls the City, Momi is told. But the owner, the new Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, says he is not for selling.  

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Rodrigo Santoro – Hector in “Westworld,” Xerxes in “300”– leans forward in his chair during a Zoom interview almost touching the screen, such is his excitement. “It’s absolutely extraordinary, the accomplishment. What they did, what this man did. The mission seemed completely impossible.” Santoro is talking about Ferdinand Magellan, whom he plays in Prime Video’s “Boundless,” directed by Simon West (“Con Air,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”), also starring Alvaro Morte, the Professor in “Money Heist,” and ZDF Studios and RTVE’s banner title at this year’s Mipcom.  West calls the series his “passion project.” For anybody interested in the Age of Discovery, Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world, completed by Basque Juan Sebastián Elcano, is the voyage of voyages, the greatest feat in maritime history, writes historian    

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Ahead of next week’s Mipcom, Banijay has acquired global rights to Argentine celebrity competition series “The Hotel,”  continuing its hugely successful relationship with Diego Guebel’s high-flying Boxfish in Argentina.  Produced by Boxfish for Canal 13, one of Argentina’s biggest free-to-air channels, “The Hotel” (“El Hotel”) sees 16 celebrity contestants shut themselves away for four months in a luxury hotel on the outskirts of a city. There’s only one caveat: the luxury establishment does not employ any staff.  “While guests enjoy a luxurious stay in the pool, spa and live shows and tuck into gourmet dinners, staff are housed in the hotel’s service area, washing linen, preparing breakfast and serving the guests’ every need,” Banijay explained Saturday, announcing its acquisition. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent To be released worldwide Nov. 4 on Prime Video, Amazon Original “El Presidente: The Corruption Game,” from Academy Award winner Armando Bo, is a Latin American series about how a Brazilian, João Havelange, wrestled control from Europe of the biggest sport on earth. In a neat historical echo, backed by Bo, “Narcos” producer Gaumont TV, Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Fabula (“La Jauría”) and Argentine powerhouse Kapow (“La Jauría”), the second season in the “El Presidente” series saga of soccer business high jinks and low morals now looks set to become one of the biggest soccer titles released in the countdown to the greatest show on earth, the FIFA World Cup. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “La Mesías,” from “Veneno” creators Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, drinks deep from Catholic tradition from its very title — literally, “The Female Messiah” — to iconography  and focus on faith.  Another awaited Movistar+ series, “The Left-Handed Son,” created by “The Plague” screenwriter Rafael Cobos, was presented to the press in July against a spectacular backdrop taking in, just across a waterway, Seville’s iconic Torre de Oro and, a little further away, the Giralda bell tower of Seville’s Cathedral. In line with platform production trends the world over, rather than playing down local elements, Movistar+ is playing them up. For the Telefonica SVOD/pay TV player in Spain, this has been a longterm philosophy, reaching back to its earliest series in 2017. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent YouTube Originals will launch on Nov. 18 “Behind the Beats,” a novel animated pop music anthology series produced by France’s TeamTO and 22D Music Group in partnership with France Télévisions, the French public broadcaster.  Episodes 1-4 of the novel history of pop will also debut on the YouTube Kids app, YouTube Originals Kids & Family announced on Wednesday. YouTube and TeamTO have shared first-look images from the series in exclusivity with Variety.  The deal sees YouTube launching the series worldwide but with a one-year holdback in the French language, where France Télévisions has first-window exclusivity. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Showrun and directed by Academy Award winner Juan Jose Campanella (“The Secret in Their Eyes”), burgeoning hit Paramount+ franchise “The Envoys” has gone into production on Season 2 in Galicia, North-West Spain. Miguel Angel Silvestre (“En el corredor de la muerte”) and Luis Gerardo Méndez (“Club de Cuervos”) are reprising their roles as Vatican dispatched miracle corroborators, playing alongside Assira Abbate (“Empire of Lies”), who also starred in Season 1. Described as a gripping thriller, Season 2 is again produced by VIS, Paramount’s international studio, in collaboration with 100 Bares, Campanella’s Buenos Aires production label and, this time round, Galicia’s A Coruña-based Portocabo. A producer on Movistar Plus+ hits “Hierro” and “Rapa,” Portocabo has also been behind pioneering premium TV co-productions with Portugal (“Dry Water”). 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Spain’s Marc Clotet (“The Sleeping Voice,” “15 Hours”) and Argentina’s Juan Gil Navarro (“100 Days To Fall in Love”), Santiago Achaga (“Like, La Leyenda”) and Esteban Pérez (“Limbo”) are attached to star in “Fragile,” a slice of Patagonia noir thriller from Argentina’s StoryLab.  Created and produced by StoryLab partners Nacho Viale and Diego Palacio, “Fragile” is backed by Flow, Telecom’s dominate Argentine SVOD service, and Televisión Publica Argentina, the country’s public broadcast network.  Palacio will direct “Fragile” (“Fragiles”) from screenplays penned by Lucas Molteni, whose has written on five StoryLab series dating back to 201’s “Estocolmo,” up-and-coming scribes Juan E. Cordoni and Luciano Cocciardi and Viale and Palacio. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Upping the ante on its inaugural edition, the 2nd Iberseries & Platino Industria will unveil about 50 drama series, whether via first episodes (Capítulo Uno, Segunda Ventana), or showreels or trailers (Upcoming…). Following a breakdown of titles, and showreel highlights in showreels, featuring some of the most anticipated titles from Spain and Latin America, as well as recent hits: Capitulo Uno “El Encargado,” (Star Original Productions/The Walt Disney Company Latin America)

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Rodrigo Sorogoyen, director of “As Bestas,” “Riot Police” and the Oscar-nominated “Madre,” is bringing onto the international market “La Guerra,” a six-part drama delivering a new vision of the Spanish Civil War which looks like one of the biggest Spanish series ever made. Sorogoyen will direct all six episodes. Isabel Peña, Sorogoyen, and Eduardo Villanueva, “Riot Police’s”writing team, have fairly definitive version of three episodes with the rest at an initial phase.  “La Guerra” was originally set up at Movistar Plus+. In an amicable settlement – Sorogoyen has gone on to direct and promote an episode of Movistar+ original “Offworld” at last week’s San Sebastián – after Movistar Plus+ pulled out of the series, Sorogoyen and Villanueva’s Madrid-based label Caballo Films have recovered the rights. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Headed by ex-HBO exec James Costos, Los Angeles and Madrid-based Secuoya Studios and Colombia’s Caracol Television have closed a framework deal to jointly develop, produce and finance scripted series over the next year.  The agreement seals an alliance between two of Latin America’s powerhouses, with large international ambitions. Amazon’s Prime Video and now Mediawan have boarded Secuoya Studios’ flagship series “Zorro,” starring “Elite’s” Miguel Bernardeau and Renata Notni, directed by “Money Heist’s” Javier Quintas. Producer of iconic longer-format series, Caracol TV’s “La Reina del Flow” Season 1 sold to over 100 countries; “El Rey; Vicente Fernandez” Season 1 bowed on Netflix Sept. 12 , shooting to No. 3 in global non-English charts. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent The dream child of 10 Basque businessmen who hoped to prolong San Sebastián’s summer season into late September, the San Sebastian Film Festival was born on Sept. 21, 1953.  Presented by bullfighter Mario Cabré, who romanced Ava Gardner, and comprising just 19 films, won by “La guerra de Dios,” directed by Rafael Gil., rescued from a potential Republican firing squad by Luis Buñuel not so many years before. Fireworks, bullfights and quayside parties regaled the film week. From that first edition remain the beauty and gastronomy of San Sebastian, a Belle Epoque resort boasting the spectacular white-sand Concha Bay, steep-backed hills, an old quarter of higgeldy-piggeldy streets and a trio of three-star Michelin restaurants. 70 years later, San Sebastián still stuns.     

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Mexico’s Bruno Santamaría, Argentina’s Martín Benchimol and Turkey’s Selman Nacar proved three of the big winners among San Sebastian Industry Awards, announced Wednesday. João Paulo Miranda, already a young star on Brazil’s film scene after “Memory House,” meanwhile won the Ikusmira Berriak Award. A Chicago Golden Hugo winner for doc feature “Things We Dare Not Do,” Santamaría swept two awards at the fest’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, a Mecca for Latin America auteurs and their producers seeking vital co-production partners as state funding prospects have plunged across the region.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Armando Espitia, who broke out as the hapless young factory worker in Amat Escalante’s Cannes winner “Heli,” is attached to star in “Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building,” a feature project being brought to San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum by Mexico’s Bruno Santamaría Raso.  Also on board is actor – and writer-producer – Sofia Espinosa, who fulfilled all three roles in Max Zunino’s “Los Bañistas” and “Bruma” and won a Mexican Academy Ariel for her tearaway performance as Gloria Trevi in “Gloria.” Written and to be directed by Santamaría, “Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building,” (“Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul,”) marks his first fiction feature. He caught attention and won a Chicago Golden Hugo Golden Hugo and Golde Q Hugo for best documentary for “Things We Dare Not Do,” a movie straddling fiction in its finish, production values and narrative structures as it depicts Toño, the eldest son and second father to a swarm of siblings, living in a benighted village on marshy plains and plucking up the courage to tell his mother that he’s gay.     

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Paris-based La Fabrica Nocturna Cinéma, producer of Chema García Ibarra’s 2021 Locarno winner “Sacred Spirit,” has boarded Gabriel Azorin’s “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes,” marking another financing milestone for his buzzy, poetic and time blending Spanish project.  A Locarno Match Me! hit. “Thebes” has been put through both San Sebastián’s Ikusmira Berriak and Madrid’s ECAM Incubator, rapidly consolidating as Spain’s foremost development labs which each attract about 270 applications a year.   La Fabrica Nocturna, whose credits also take in “The Heiresses,” joins Madrid’s Dvein Films, A Coruña’s Filmika Galaika (“They Carry Death”) and Lisbon’s Primeira Idade (“The Metamorphosis of Birds”) as a producer partner on “Thebes,” which won a RTP Award, consisting of the pre-buy of rights from the Portuguese public broadcaster, at late 2020’s Seville European Film Festival.  

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Austrian director Ulrich Seidl has cancelled his visit to San Sebastian for the Sept. 18 world premiere of “Sparta,” amid allegations of impropriety and child exploitation made against the director. The world premiere will still go ahead at San Sebastian with the film playing in main competition contending for San Sebastian’s Gold Shell. Seidl’s decision comes after the Toronto Film Festival pulled “Sparta” and on Sept. 14, FilmFest Hamburg announced that it would no longer be giving Seidl its Douglas Sirk Award, though it would be screening “Sparta.”

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Eight of the 10 directors in the Morelia Festival’s main Mexican competition are women, led by two of the biggest Mexican fest hits of the year,“Robe of Gems,” Natalia López Gallardo’s Berlin Special Jury laureate, and “Huesera,” from Michelle Garza Cervera, a double Tribeca winner. Features with Indigenous or Black Mexican protagonists have shot up in Mexico, from 14 in 2019 to 31 in 2019, according to Imcine’s Mexican Cinema Yearbook. In 2017, Mexico’s biggest homegrown hit was Nicolas López’s “Do It Like an Hombre,” a merciless taunt of a Mexican macho’s helpless homophobia, which grossed $11.0 million in the country. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent 10 films underscoring Mexican cinemas drive into diversity: “Huesera,” (Michelle Garza Cervera) Valeria is pregnant, but something is wrong with the baby. Shades of “Rosemary’s Baby,” but “Huesera” goes its own way,  as Valeria gradually realizes what for her is really horror.  Genre and LGBTQ, a double winner at Tribeca, taking its coveted New Narrative Director hardware, and picked up by XYZ Films for most world sales. “A terrifying, bone-breaking body horror nightmare,” said Variety. Produced by Mexico’s Napa Films and Machete Films, the latter behind Cannes winners “Leap Year” and “La Jaula de Oro.” 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Atresplayer Premium, the burgeoning OTT service behind HBO Max hit “Veneno,” has renewed “The Gypsy Bride” (“La novia gitana”), whose Season 1, from “Penny Dreadful” director Paco Cabezas, world premieres at the San Sebastian Film Festival.  Atresmedia Television will produce with Banijay Iberia’s Diagonal TV, producer of Netflix hit “Heirs to the Land.”Produced by VIS with the participation of Atresmedia Television and the collaboration of the Diagonal TV, the first season of “The Gypsy Bride” will bow on Atresplayer Premium on Sept. 25.  Directed in its totality by Cabezas, whose credits also include “American Gods,” Season 1 is set in a gypsy community on Madrid’s humble outskirts as homicide inspector Elena Blanco, (Nerea Barros, “Marshland”) is called in to investigate the torture and assassination of a young woman just before her wedding.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent In the first shot of “OffWorld” (“Apagon”), the camera focuses on Ernesto – balding, serious, tired, lost in thought. It then pulls back to reveal the whole of his office, a computer-screen packed rom at an emergency intervention unit. The shot says much about the latest series from Movistar+, “Off world,” which world premieres in Official Selection at Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival and in turn speaks volumes of the ambitions and priorities of Telefonica-owned Movistar+, Southern Europe’s biggest national pay-TV/SVOD service.  Produced with Buendía Estudios, “OffWorld” presents five stories which place very different individuals in the same context, a world where there’s no electricity thanks to a massive power outage; things taken for granted like phones and the internet don’t work. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent The San Sebastian Festival opens on Sept. 16 with a bang: Alberto Rodriguez’s “Prison 77,” most probably the biggest Spanish film of 2022, the latest title from one of the Spain’s most preeminent auteurs and a foretaste of one possible future face of Spanish cinema, thanks to Movistar+. “Prison 77” begins as a fish-out-of-water jail survival thriller. Manuel, in 1977, a young accountant, played by Miguel Herrán (“Money Heist,” “Elite”), is sent to Barcelona’s legendary Modelo penitentiary pending trial for embezzlement.  It grows, however, for all of its length, as a character-driven tale of psychological observance, as Miguel gradually befriends Pino, his seen-it-all cell mate, who just wants a quiet life.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Alvaro Longoria, partner-producer at Morena Films, one of Spain’s top production shingles, is teaming with the Government of Cantabria to create El Bosque del Cine, a pioneering reforestation scheme offering producers a simple but inspiring way of cancelling productions’ carbon footprints.  The program is set to be unveiled on Sept. 13 at a round table at this week’s Santander Film Festival. El Bosque del Cine aims to plant 34,000 trees over 40 hectares, lent to the program by the Government of Cantabria. Creation will be divided into two phases of 20 hectares each, the first beginning this year. The forest will absorb 19,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions, equivalent to the footprint of 320 movies. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent One of the film industry’s biggest growth sectors, the international location shoot scene, looks set to impact Toronto on Saturday at a Spain Film Commission breakfast. Among attractions tabled at the meet with Canadian producers will be Spain’s extraordinary landscapes and heritage sites and a new shoot incentive which ranks among the highest in the world.  From Jan. 1, 2023 Spain’s Bizkaia looks set to offer an up-to-70% tax credit for foreign and national shoots lensing in the Basque province. Notably, the incentive has no cap at all.  The tax break forms part of a ramp up of Spain’s big international shoot scene. “House of the Dragon” has returned to islet San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, “Game of Thrones’” Dragonstone. In general, foreign shoots are flocking to Spain, spending €263 million ($263 million) there in 2021, double the 2016-19 average, according to a study by the country’s ProFilm line producers assn. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Munich-based Beta Film, one of Europe’s biggest truly independent TV-film groups, has licensed to PPCW Media for Hong Kong and Macau International Emmy winner “Atlantic Crossing,” starring Kyle MacLachan and Sofia Helin. PPC Media has also acquired Alejandro Amenábar’s Movistar Plus+ original “La Fortuna,” with Stanley Tucci and Clarke Peters, a tale of piracy, court room battles and historical justice set between the U.S. and Spain. Reaching more remote places, Beta has also closed Mongolia with Hulegu Media, on “Sisi” a mix of sex, politics and period glam from RTL, Beta and Story House, a modern mindset take on a film icon.  

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Germany’s KiKA, France’s TF1 and Denmark’s DR Sales figure among the best-known of contenders for the 2022 Cartoon Tributes, awarded for outstanding achievement in Europe’s TV animation industry. France, followed by Spain, dominates Cartoon’s three categories of broadcaster, investor/distributor and producer of the year, which will be voted on by the about 1,000 delegates at this year’s Cartoon Forum, which takes place in Toulouse, Southern France, over Sept. 19-22. Award winners will be announced on Sept. 22.  Backed by German public broadcast giants ARD and ZDF, KiKa figures as Germany’s biggest kids connect provider. But it will face tough competition from TF1 Unité Jeunesse, the children’s  arm of giant French broadcast network TF1 whose kids slot TFOU broadcasts 70 hours of programming a year. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Heitor Dhalia, one of Brazil’s foremost and most ambitious movie auteurs, director of  “Drained,” “Adrift” and “Bald Mountain,” is teaming with Netflix to make “DNA do Crime,” a banner title for the U.S. streaming giant in Brazil, one of its largest international markets. Described by Dhalia as “one of the biggest series ever produced in Brazil,” the eight-part scripted skein, which goes into production on Oct. 31, turns on a heist of epic proportions, which takes place on the Brazil-Paraguay border.  When federal police officers are called in to investigate, they discover “the beginning of a thread that unravels, like no other, the construction of crime in the country,” the synopsis runs.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Walls Can Talk,” the latest film by Spain Carlos Saura, director of “Raise Ravens,” “Deprisa, Deprisa” and “Carmen,” has been acquired for intentional sales by Madrid-based Latido.   Produced by María del Puy Alvarado at Malvalanda (“Madre,” “The Mole Agent”) and distributed in Spain by José Maria nd Miguel Morales’ Wanda Vision, “Walls Can Talk” will world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival as an RTVE Gala.  The doc feature sees Saura conduct his own inquest into the origins of art, directing and for once starring in a film. In it, he visits masterpieces of paleolithic art– in Spain’s Altamira and El Castillo caves, for instance – and asks modern (Miquel Barceló) and graffiti artists and urban creators (Suso 33, Zeta, Musa71) about what drives them to paint.