15/07/2005

Hot summer for Spanish film productions. Just this week, two long awaited shoots, Salvador [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and El laberinto del fauno [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] finally began. The films mark the return behind the cameras of Manuel Huerga and Guillermo del Toro, while the shoot for Volver [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agustín Almodóvar
interview: Carmen Maura
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
interview: Pénélope Cruz
film profile], Pedro Almodóvar's 16th film will start on Monday, July 18. Three very different projects promising to make a splash in the big screens in 2006.

Manuel Huerga, whose last film as a director was Antártica in 1995, adapts to the big screen the book "Compte enrere" by Francesc Escribano about the anarchist Salvador Puig Antich, executed in 1974 by the Franco regime. Produced by Jaume Roure for MediaPro, Salvador has in the leading role the German of Catalan descent Daniel Brühl (Good bye Lenin). Spanish actors Leonor Watling (Talk to her), Celso Bugallo (Mar Adentro [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Argentinean actor Leonardo Sbaraglia (Plata Quemada) complete the casting of this film, whose 12 week shoot will take place in Catalunia, Andorra and France.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has just begun shooting a film for a second time in Spain. El laberinto del fauno is, according to the director, "a mix of a fairy tale and post Spanish-war". Coproduced by Estudios Picasso and Tequilla Gang with the participation of Telecinco, the film, which will be distributed by Warner Sogefilms has in its castings such names as Sergi López (Dirty Pretty Things), Maribel Verdú (Y tu mamá también) and young Ivana Baquero, who plays a 13 year old girl who is told she is the princess, long-awaited by her people.

"An Indiana Jones of domestic adventures", this his Almodóvar's latest description of Volver, which he will shoot for 11 weeks in Madrid and the Castilla La Mancha region from the 18th July onwards. With Carmen Maura, Penélope Cruz, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo and debutant Yohana Cobo, Volver, produced by El Deseo, marks the return of the director to the world of women - and neighbours - after the graver tone of Bad Education [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. "I am sure there is a reason why my films about men are tougher and more undigested than those about women, which are definitely more enlightening. I would not be able to make a male comedy because talking about men is like talking about myself in a more straightforward way and I am incapable of having a sense of humour when I talk about myself", stated the director.