22/01/2008

A US remake is in the works for the Spanish thriller Timecrimes (Los cronocrímenes) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alejandro Miranda
interview: Nacho Vigalondo
film profile], which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. United Artists has picked up remake rights to the film, which will also be distributed in America by Magnolia.

Timecrimes marks the feature debut of Nacho Vigalondo, a 30 year-old filmmaker who was nominated for Oscar and EFA awards for his short film 7:35 in the Morning.

The film, at Sundance in the Park City at Midnight section, tells the story of Hector (Karra Elejalde, a well-known comedic actor at home), who when escaping from an eccentric aggressor with a head wrapped in a pink bandage, locks himself in a scientific laboratory. When he emerges, he finds he has gone back in time.

“I love time travel, science fiction, the crime stories of James Cain and Fritz Lang’s American films with few locations, few characters and a strict criminal logic. I began from there and added the idea of travelling in time, like in those absurd 1970s novels, and a dash of soft-core eroticism,” says Vigalondo, who adores Tarantino and all those directors who “broke down the barriers between arthouse cinema and genre films”.