Cannes Film Festival<\/a>: Almod\u00f3var and Javier Bardem, who fronts Sorogoyen\u2019s \u201cThe Beloved.\u201d The 11 Spanish feature productions selected for the main sections at the Cannes Festival this year is also a record.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cThere is a definite movement within Spanish cinema,\u201d said Cannes Festival head Thierry Fr\u00e9maux at the April 9 announcement the 2026 Cannes official selection.<\/p>\n
\n\tSpain\u2019s major talent is exploding on the international stage, both in film and TV. One reason: From 2023-25, SVOD services in Western Europe grew revenues by $7 billion, public broadcasters by just $400 million, according to Ampere Analysis.\u00a0And it is Europe\u2019s streaming services \u2014 including U.S.\u2013 based services \u2013 that have the ability to invest in movies of large artistic and production ambitions. That has happened for decades in France with Canal+. It has now happening in Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThrough 2023, arthouse films were made for a maximum \u20ac2 million-\u20ac3 million\u00a0 [$2.3 million-$3.5 million].<\/p>\n
\n\tIn January 2024, Movistar Plus+ raised the bar, announcing its first movie slate including \u201cSir\u0101t\u201d and \u201cThe Beloved,\u201d its aim to co-produce\u00a0artistically ambitious movies powered by budgets competitive with big arthouse films in France.\u00a0It unveiled \u201cLa bola negra\u201d at last Cannes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThese are projects with a strong auteurist personality driven by talent seeking to transform every film into an event,\u201d says a Movistar Plus+ source, also citing \u201cSundays\u201d and\u00a0\u00a0\u201cLos Tigres.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tOne case in point is \u201cSir\u0101t,\u201d made for \u20ac6.5 million ($7.6 million). \u00a0Without such a budget, notes producer Oriol Maym\u00f3, the film could never have afforded such hallmark creative achievements as its signature immersive soundtrack, which earned an Oscar nomination. The soundtrack was created with Dolby Atmos \u2014 technology that\u2019s unusual on non-mainstream Spanish films, Maym\u00f3 says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWith healthier budgets, Spain\u2019s top-notch directors can begin to let their full creativity flow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tSorogoyen\u2019s \u201cThe Beloved,\u201d for instance, kicks off with a single 20-minute restaurant scene, lensed near entirely in character-studying shot, counter-shot close-up; the film\u2019s mid section then varies formats, from film stock to digital, black and white to color and widescreen to box frame formats. Cannes competition film \u201cLa bola negra,\u201d from Ambrossi and Calvo, is another Movistar Plus+ original. Movistar Plus+ also made a muscular pre-buy on \u201cBitter Christmas,\u201d acknowledged in the film\u2019s credits.<\/p>\n
\n\tSpain\u2019s Cannes competition triple whammy is a \u201ckind of prize for recent recognition of Spanish cinema, with Pedro Almod\u00f3var winning Venice, Oliver Laxe at Cannes and Albert Serra and Alauda Ruiz de Az\u00faa [winning] San Sebastian\u2019s Golden Shell in 2024 and 2025,\u201d says Sorogoyen, noting that in 2017, Carla Sim\u00f3n won the Berlinale best first feature prize with \u201cSummer 1993,\u201d then scored the festival\u2019s Golden Bear in 2022 with \u201cAlcarr\u00e0s.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThis year, Sim\u00f3n is featured at Cannes with a short, \u201cFlamenco,\u201d part of a Spanish export board ICEX campaign Where Talent Ignites to promote Spanish creativity worldwide. <\/p>\n
\n\tSim\u00f3n is a banner talent in a new filmmaker generation \u2014 often women directors and producers \u2014championed in Catalonia by a government whose public-sector investment in audiovisual stood at \u20ac60 million ($70 million) in 2024.\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s been a proliferation of very interesting films from Catalan women directors,\u201d says Sorogoyen, \u201cand you can find highly interesting directors in Galicia, Andalusia and other regions of Spain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018The End of It\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\tAs regional film funds have built over Spain, producers have plowed into pan-regional production then international co-production, as majority or minority partners, often reaching out to talent across the world. Catalonia, for example, has six films selected for Cannes. Two are feature debuts from women directors: Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez Bayona\u2019s \u201cThe End of It,\u201d in Cannes Premiere, and Aina Clotet\u2019s Critics\u2019 Week player \u201cViva.\u201d The other features are films by Mexico\u2019s Diego Luna, Morocco\u2019s La\u00efla Marrakchi, France\u2019s Bruno Dumont and Iran\u2019s Pegah Ahangarani supported by Catalan producers.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the March\u00e9 du Film, \u201cThe Harvester,\u201d a big-budget 1870s thriller inspired by Spain\u2019s first documented serial killer, is produced by Andalusia\u2019s La Claqueta and co-produced by the Basque Country\u2019s Amania Films and Belgium\u2019s Caviar-Beluga. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe world, moreover, has changed, and moved Spain\u2019s way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWith social media \u2014 and in Spain after the 2004 terrorist attack and then financial crisis \u2014 new generations are much more politically committed. The world wants films that are relevant, speaking to what\u2019s happening now,\u201d notes Pedro Palacios, producer of Serra\u2019s San Sebasti\u00e1n winner \u201cAfternoons of Solitude.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSpain\u2019s new generation of cineastes tap into this zeitgeist. \u201cThe Beloved\u201d questions self-assured patriarchy embodied by the character played by Bardem. \u201cLa Bola Negra\u201d traces homophobia in Spain in 1932, 1937 and 2017.<\/p>\n
\n\tAlso, after decades of mainly disinterest, France has embraced Spain. Sorogoyen\u2019s \u201cThe Beasts\u201d in 2023 beat four Cannes competition winners to take France\u2019s Cesar for best foreign-language film. Last year, Spain won the two top prizes at France\u2019s Series Mania, Europe\u2019s biggest TV festival, with Ru\u00edz de Az\u00faa\u2019s \u201cQuerer\u201d and Diego San Jose\u2019s \u201cCeleste.\u201d Released on Arte France, \u201cLa Mes\u00edas,\u201d from Calvo and Ambrossi, was hailed by French newspaper\u00a0La Liberation as \u201cone of the most beautiful series of the year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tSpain\u2019s international consecration looks well on its way.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Bitter Christmas\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 2025-26, no country anywhere in the world outside France, not even the U.S., has had more Cannes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[6639,2000,299,267326,267327,248308,267328,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-957390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-cannes-film-festival","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-javier-ambrossi","12":"tag-javier-calvo","13":"tag-pedro-almodu00f3var","14":"tag-rodrigo-sorogoyen","15":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116568188201199459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}