Spanish director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, who swept the board at March’s Málaga Film Festival, has wrapped shooting on her sophomore feature, “Eres Tú,” a Netflix’ romantic comedy produced by Antonio Asensio and Paloma Molina at Zeta Studios – the Madrid-based company behind phenomenon “Elite.” Miriam Rodríguez executive produces.
After distributing Almodovar and signing up J.A. Bayona for real-life disaster drama “Society of the Snow,” Ruiz de Azúa’s attachment to “Eres tú” marks another association with a prestige director by Netflix in Spain.
Netflix Spain already accounts for three of the five most watched non-English Netflix movies ever: “The Platform,” “Below Zero” and “Through My Window.” It is, however, progressively diversifying its slate of series, movies, documentaries and TV shows by incorporating different creators profiles to create potential crowd-pleasers.
“Eres tú” follows Javier who, when 16 and kissing a girl for the first time, discovers that he had a gift of romantic clairvoyance. With just a kiss, Javier is able to anticipate the future of any relationship before experiencing it.
As a result, he is incapable of sustaining a lasting relationship as an adult. Everything takes a new turn when one night, at a party, he kisses Lucía and pictures himself happily married with children. The sole obstacle is that Lucía is currently the girlfriend of his best friend.
Ruiz de Azúa’s second feature is penned by Cristóbal Garrido and Adolfo Valor, the showrunners on Spanish series “Días mejores,” made with VIS, and Movistar Plus’ “Reyes de la noche.” Key cast is headed by Álvaro Cervantes (Dani de la Orden’s “Crazy About Her”), Silvia Alonso (Oriol Paulo’s “Mirage”), Susana Abaitua (“Crazy”) and Gorka Otxoa (Borja Cobeaga’s “Bomb Scared”).
“Directing a second feature for Netflix has been an opportunity to gain in professional experience and craft and explore who I am as director from a very different place to my debut feature,” Ruíz de Azua told Variety.
She added: “Changing genre and tone is a great learning curve for a director. Telling this local, generational tale for a global audience has been a fun and enriching challenge.”
“The bet on direction by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, a director with a very special vision, a very complete career to date and a more than promising future, added to a great cast and crew, are for us the guarantee of success for this production,” said Zeta Studios sources.
Selected by Variety in 2021 a Spanish talent to track, Ruiz de Azúa swept Spain’s 25th Málaga Film Festival last month with her first feature “Lullaby,” scoring best Spanish picture, best actress awards for both protagonists as well as screenplay and audience nods. It also added four non-official awards. “Lullaby” previously world-premiered this February at Berlinale’s Panorama section..
Sold by Latido Films, and made after five shorts from Ruiz de Azúa, “Lullaby” turns on 35-year Amaia, a young mother overwhelmed by maternity who moves back two her family home in a fishing village on the Basque coast, where she comes to understand far better he own mother, Begoña, who has always seemed traditional abrasive Basque country matriarch.
“Lullaby” is produced by Encanta Films, Sayaka Producciones and Buenapinta Media. It was developed at the ECAM Madrid Film School’s pioneering Incubator program in 2019. Other projects coming out of that same Incubator edition take in Chema García Ibarra’s Locarno hit “Sacred Spirit” and David Pérez Sañudo’s “Ane Is Missing,” which won two top Spanish Academy Goya Awards.
John Hopewell and Anna Marie de la Fuente contributed to this article.
Source: Read Full Article
