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San Sebastian director details “personal obsession” to enhance industry days.

José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastián Film Festival, has revealed his “personal obsession” with establishing its industry strand a landmark event for the sector.

His statement of intent follows the launch of its industry days on Friday and marks the start of San Sebastian’s Films in Progress section. The strand will feature six unfinished Latin American films seeking finance that will be showcased to international players.

Also launching is the festival’s Co-Production Forum, where 16 projects are introduced to a wide range of producers, sales agents and distributors.

For the first time, both strands have been launched on the same day in a bid to give them a higher profile and an estimated 1,180 industry members have requested accreditation - a boost of more than 10% on 2012.

Bridge to South America

Both industry strands aim to provide a bridge between Europe and Latin America.

Films in Progress...

Pope Francis movie in the works? Friend of the Poor: The Pope Francis Story is the working title of a projected English-language biopic about the recently elected pope, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires. According to the National Catholic Register‘s Joseph Pronechen, German-born producer and Catholic convert Christian Peschken (listed on the IMDb as Chris Peschken) decided to make a movie about the first American pope (as in, from the Americas) after watching Pope Francis appear on the balcony at the Vatican on the day of his election. The National Catholic Register report states that an "European investment group has already approved a $25-million budget" for Friend of the Poor: The Pope Francis Story — which doesn’t even have a screenplay ready. Amg Films, a company that specializes in Catholic-themed movies, would handle sales. Peschken has invited Spanish filmmaker Antonio Cuadri, whose best known effort is probably the...

Spain proved the big victor at this year's 11th annual Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival winning awards for best picture, best documentary, best opera prima and best screenplay at the event's closing ceremony Monday night in Hollywood.

Winning for best picture, Spain's "El Corazon de la Tierra" tells the story of mounting tensions between local Spanish workers and their British employers in an Andalusia mining town. Directed by Antonio Cuadri, the Spanish film stars Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem accepted the award for best documentary for "Invisibles", which was directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Javier Corcuera, Mariano Barroso, Wim Wenders and Isabel Coixet. The film marks Bardem's debut as a producer with support from the humanitarial organization Doctors Without Borders.

Other winners of the evening's event, which took place at ArcLight's Cinerama Dome, included Spain's "Ladrones" for best opera prima, Spain/Cuba's "Madrigal" for best screenplay, Paul Leduc for best director for Mexico's "El Cobrador" and from the U.S., "The Grass Grows Green: Life and Death From Behind the Recruiting Office Desk" directed by Jesus Beltran for best short.

ROME -- Ryan Eslinger's "When a Man Falls in the Forest", a Golden Bear nominee at this year's Berlinale, and "Numb" from Harris Goldberg are among the dozen films that will appear in competition at the first Drake International Film Festival, set for June 23-30 near Naples.

The lineup was announced amid controversy over the leadership of the new festival, which will be held in the sprawling Reggia di Caserta, a World Heritage Site since 1996. Several of the event's top officials were replaced in recent weeks, with some complaining loudly in the Italian press.

But organizers promise the festival will be a hit.

With a screening schedule that focuses on new filmmakers and innovative technologies, Drake's competition lineup also includes Robbie Moffat-directed action flick "Axe Raiders", "Johnny 316" from Erick Ifergan, Andrew Black-helmed comedy "Moving McAllister" and "The Last Request" from John DeBellis and starring Danny Aiello.

Other competition titles include Nick Lyon's gritty rape and murder mystery "Punk Love"; "Gumiho Gajok" (The Fox Family) from South Korea's Hyung-gon Lee; "The Heart of the Earth", a romance from Antonio Cuadri; Brett Leonard's action fantasy "Highlander: The Source"; "The Melon Route" from Croatia's Branko Schmidt; and Augustin Diaz Yanes' Viggo Mortensen starrer "Alatriste", winner of three Goya Awards earlier this year.

MADRID -- Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) has lined up alongside Sienna Guillory, Hugh Dancy, Bernard Hill and Joaquim de Almeida to star in Antonio Cuadri's The Heart of the Earth, producers announced Thursday. The film boasts a €12 million ($14.3 million) budget and will shoot for 12 weeks in Spain and Portugal beginning March 31. The story, written by Cuadri, is set around the British-owned mines of Rio Tinto in 1888 and depicts the friendship of two women, one Spanish and the other British, against the social upheavals of the time. The tale is based on the true story of the arrival of Cuban anarchist Maximiliano Tornet, which resulted in an organized strike at the mine -- the first ecological demonstration in history -- that ended in a massacre. The Heart of the Earth is a Spanish-British-Portuguese co-production, produced by Juan Carlos Orihuela and Luis Angel Bellaba of Manufacturas Audiovisuales with the support of Jose Portela's Abra Prods. The U.K.'s Heart of the Earth Productions Ltd. and Future Film, and Costa do Castelo Filmes from Portugal, will co-produce. International sales are being handled by Michael Ryan and Guy Collins' London-based Sequence Film/IAC Film.