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INDUSTRY Spain

The Screen selects its first five projects

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- The film development programme of Madrid's ECAM has already picked the participants following its very first call

The Screen selects its first five projects
A promo image for The Innocence by Lucía Alemany

As previously reported when it was originally created (see the news), The Screen (an initiative intended to foster the productions of the ECAM: Film and Audiovisual School of the Community of Madrid) aims to generate a reserve of filmmakers by supporting up-and-coming talents. The call for projects closed in December, and we now know which ones (of the 216 that applied) will form part of the film development programme christened La incubadora, which will take place over the next four months. They will each receive €10,000 in addition to guidance from Spanish and international professionals.

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A committee made up of Marisa F Armenteros, associate producer at Mediapro; Koldo Zuazua, producer at Kowalski Films; Mercedes Martínez-Abarca, a member of the programming department at the International Film Festival Rotterdam; and Olimpia Pont, a film consultant and representative of the Seville European Film Festival, was tasked with making the selection of the projects that will be taking part in La incubadora. The initiative enjoys support from Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and a partnership with TorinoFilmLab Meeting Event and the IFFR Rotterdam Lab in order to facilitate the international promotion of the producers taking part in this inaugural edition.

Standing out among the lucky ones chosen this time is the comedy Old Man in Love (El profesor), written and directed by Navarrese filmmaker Daniel Castro, an impossible-to-categorise director who surprised audiences at the Málaga Film Festival with his movie Ilusión five years ago. Now, he follows the story of the titular teacher, a man who travels to South America in search of a model he met on the internet. The film is being produced by Jaime Gona, of Gonita Films (Selfie [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Víctor García León
film profile
]
).

Paco Nicolás also premiered his debut documentary, the Mandarin-language Yu Gang, at the most recent edition of Málaga; this time around, he will acquaint us with The Garcías (Los García), a non-fiction film about an 80-year-old woman who finds some old Super 8 tapes in her house. Production duties are being handled by Sara de la Fuente, Álvaro Díaz and Alberto Tortes (Mammut).

The selection is rounded off by a horror film and two dramas: the former is being helmed by David Casademunt (who co-directed the documentary Rumba 3. De ida y vuelta with Joan Capdevilla) and is called El páramo [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
. It is being staged by Laura Rubirola (Fitzcarraldo Films SL) and boasts a screenplay written by the director together with Martí Lucas and Fran Menchón. It tells the story of how a mother and son, shut away in a house in the middle of nowhere, sense a strange being watching them from afar, but every day it draws nearer and nearer…

Lastly, one of the two dramas in the selection is The Innocence [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lucía Alemany
film profile
]
 by Lucía Alemany, which is being produced by Lina Badenes (Turanga Films) and Belén Sánchez (Un capricho de producciones), and whose succinct synopsis proclaims: “Life is a more serious game than it seems.” The other drama is named after a woman, Josefina [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, and will be helmed by (so far) short-film director Javier Marco, with production duties entrusted to Sergy Moreno (White Leaf Producciones). According to the script, written by Belén Sánchez-Arévalo, “Prison officer Juan silently observes the visits of Berta, the mother of one of the inmates, every Sunday. One day, once he’s finally managed to get close to her, he surprises himself by passing himself off as another father and pretending that his daughter is in jail.”

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(Translated from Spanish)

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