Yahoo Lifestyle Boutique Producer Señor y Señora Preps Aritz Moreno Karate Biopic, Samurai Series, Irati Gorostidi’s ‘Anekumen’ (EXCLUSIVE)
In a clear move toward commercial fare, Spain’s boutique production house Señor y Señora, present this week at Madrid’s ECAM Forum with Pedro Hernando’s work in progress “A Whale,” is lining up its biggest slate ever. |
Heading the outfit’s scripted lineup is “Karateka,” Señor y Señora co-founder Aritz Moreno’s third feature after his EFA nominated breakthrough debut “Advantages of Travelling by Train” and dark thriller “Moscas” which bowed at Sitges and Rotterdam.
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Budgeted at over €6 million ($6.5 million), “Karateka” tells the larger-than-life story of Spanish karate queen and Olympic gold medallist Sandra Sánchez.
“It’s the story of a woman’s extraordinary achievement, both on a sports and personal level,” says Moreno, currently location scouting in Japan where he resides.
“Sandra won Spain’s first-ever karate Olympic gold medal aged 39 in Japan, while her long-time Japanese rival Kiyou Shimizu was 27. On a personal level, when she was in her twenties, she had to put her sport aside for some time to care for her mother who was suffering from cancer. Her Federation dismissed her for being too old when she wanted to compete again. It’s thanks to the support of Jesús del Moral, a trainer as brilliant as atypical [whom she then married], that she managed to stay at the top level,” Moreno explains.
The script is being penned by best-selling novel David B. Gil, Pablo Tobías (“Operación Barrio Inglés”) and Javier Gullon (“Advantages of Travelling by Train”).
Sandra [Sánchez] is super fan of David B Gil’s novels, many of them set in feudal Japan,” adds Moreno who will tell the karate queen’s heroic journey “in a classic chronological order, from aged four to her triumph at the Olympics, but with an awe-inspiring visual style, “he told Variety.
Moreno is also thrilled to announce that Sánchez and del Moral themselves will train the lead actress, soon to be announced.
The major feature is being produced by Senõr y Señora co-founder Leire Apellaniz (included in Variety’s Top 10 Spanish female producers to track 2023), with Spanish partners Atresmedia Cine, Apaches Entertainment as well as Belgium’s Wrong Men, and with support from the Spanish ICAA film agency, Basque tax credit funding and a Belgium tax shelter.
Filming is due to start in February 2025, lasting seven weeks in Spain and two in Japan. Warner Bros Entertainment will release “Karateka” in Spain.
Another ambitious project, reuniting the “Karateca” writing team, is the epic samurai TV series “Eight Million Gods”, to be produced by Señor y Señora with The Mediapro Studio and Irusoin.
“As we needed a seasoned TV partner, we contacted The Mediapro Studio and got them involved a few years back,” Apellaniz explains. “We’re also pleased to collaborate with Irusoin, another Basque-country company like us that we admire.”
The TV show in development is based on David B. Gil’s own eponymous novel which won best Spanish novel at the national Premios de Literatura Histórica’ in 2019. The logline runs: “a man of faith forced to unravel the most terrible crimes, a young samurai established as his protector, and a journey through a country punished by centuries of war.”
“Making it into a long-scripted format is a must, considering the rich material,” says Moreno who recently helmed Atresmedia’s series “Zorras.” “It will be high-end, shot mostly in Japanese – totally wild but we’ll do it.”
Next to Moreno’s own projects, Apellaniz, who produced Lois Patiño’s acclaimed feature debut “Samsara,” has on her roster two other rising Spanish talents.
Rising talents
Pablo Hernando, famed for his debut pic “Berserker,” a Special Award winner at 2015’s Sevilla European Film Festival, is putting the final touches to his neo noir fantasy pic “A Whale,” selected for the ECAM Forum co-production market in Madrid, which unspools over June 10-14.
Ingrid García-Jonsson (“Beautiful Youth”) stars as a contract killer with a special power related to a strange creature from an outer world which makes her untraceable. The genre movie, produced with Spain’s Sayaka Producciones and Italy’s Orisa Produzioni, is repped internationally by Latido Films.
“We still have not shown the film to buyers but due to the original concept and the powerful images, we can say that there is already strong interest from territories such as France, Australia, Korea, Japan, and CI,” said Latido’s head of acquisitions and festivals Óscar Alonso. The domestic premiere is set for this fall.
“A Whale” is the first Spanish film to receive the Green Film certificate.
Meanwhile Basque female talent to watch Irati Gorostidi, selected for the 2023 Critics’ Week competition with her short film “Contadores,” will start shooting her debut feature “Anekumen” in September.
Set in San Sebastian in 1978, the story turns on factory workers who meet to discuss a strike that never comes to anything. Disappointed, the most radical decide to leave the factory and join a libertarian commune in the Navarra mountains.
Señor y Señora is producing with Apellaniz & de Sosa, another production banner set up by Apellaniz with filmmaker-cinematographer Ion de Sosa.
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