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by Eric Blume

In other surprising/weird/interesting film projects ahead for us in 2020, filming just wrapped on Annette, a musical featuring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, and directed by French auteur Leos Carax. Apparently Driver plays a stand-up comedian and Cotillard an opera singer, whose lives take a twist with the birth of their daughter Annette, who is born with a "special gift".

The movie sounds gloriously bananas.  Is it in French or English, or both?  Leos Carax is, without hyperbole, one of the most idiosyncratic directors alive.  It's almost thirty years ago that he had Juliette Binoche waterskiing down the Seine in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, and eight years ago that he mystified everyone with the accordions and role play of Holy Motors.  The man does not have a commercial bone in his body.

We know from Marriage Story that Driver can carry a tune. It's thrilling that...

"Vicente Aranda, the Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer has died aged 88," reports Jessica Jones for the Local. "One of the director’s most internationally acclaimed films was Amantes [Lovers, 1991] a film noir that follows the passionate affair between a young man and an older woman, played by Jorge Sanz and Victoria Abril, behind the back of his innocent young girlfriend (Maribel Verdú). The film won best film and best director at the Goya’s, Spain’s most prestigious film awards and almost immediately became a modern classic of Spanish cinema." We're gathering remembrances. » - David Hudson...

"Vicente Aranda, the Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer has died aged 88," reports Jessica Jones for the Local. "One of the director’s most internationally acclaimed films was Amantes [Lovers, 1991] a film noir that follows the passionate affair between a young man and an older woman, played by Jorge Sanz and Victoria Abril, behind the back of his innocent young girlfriend (Maribel Verdú). The film won best film and best director at the Goya’s, Spain’s most prestigious film awards and almost immediately became a modern classic of Spanish cinema." We're gathering remembrances. » - David Hudson...

Beyond Buñuel, Spanish film-makers struggled to make an international impact – until Franco's death in 1975 liberated an entire generation

Spain embraced the new medium of cinema at the turn of the century as fervently as any of its European counterparts; this film of a religious procession in 1902, by the splendidly named Fructuos Gelabert, is typical of the early amateurs.

In Segundo de Chomón, however, Spain produced a trickster director

to rival France's Georges Méliès.

De Chomón worked mostly in France, and even made An Excursion to the Moon, his own version of Méliès's most famous film.

The route from Spain to France was well-trodden by the time Buñuel and Dalí made Un Chien Andalou in 1928; otherwise, little of Spain's silent-film output made any impact internationally.

The early sound period fared little better, as political convulsions in the run-up to the civil war made a settled industry difficult.

After L'Age d'Or (1930), his second French film,...

O Apóstolo isn't only the latest animated offering from Spain, but it reflects upon Spain's rich history in film animation. For some, the more recent “Planet 51” was considered a major landmark due to the budget size, overseas box office, and the huge technical advances it made in rapport to previous films in the genre, but the latest animated offering, which was set to have its world premiere at Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival but has since shifted plans, is a bigger, more detailed, stereoscopic 3D item that is poised to become a benchmark in the animation field. Directed by newcomer Fernando Cortizo, O Apóstolo is unlike previous films in the genre since it's one of the first animated films in Spain in which the target audience is for mature audiences. The story and the mood are closely inspired by the likes of Tim Burton's “The Corpse Bride”, though here,...

O Apóstolo isn't only the latest animated offering from Spain, but it reflects upon Spain's rich history in film animation. For some, the more recent “Planet 51” was considered a major landmark due to the budget size, overseas box office, and the huge technical advances it made in rapport to previous films in the genre, but the latest animated offering, which just received its world premiere at Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival is a bigger, more detailed, and a true gem in the field. Directed by newcomer Fernando Cortizo, O Apóstolo is unlike previous films in the genre since it's one of the first animated films in Spain in which the target audience is for mature audiences. The story and the mood are closely inspired by the likes of Tim Burton's “The Corpse Bride”, though here, we get the folklore, traditions and history of the north of Spain. The...