Olivier Martinez to Appear Opposite Maya Rudolph in New Apple Comedy Series

Olivier Martinez is bringing the laughs…

The 55-year-old half-Spanish French actor has landed a heavily recurring role opposite Maya Rudolph in Apple’s untitled half-hour comedy series from Emmy winners Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard.

Olivier Martinez

Created and written by Yang and Hubbard, the series follows Molly (Rudolph), a woman whose seemingly perfect life is upended after her husband leaves her with nothing but $87 billion.

Martinez will play Jean Pierre, a handsome, charismatic, romantic billionaire. Jean-Pierre comes from a philanthropic, old money family in France and wants his family’s charitable foundation to collaborate with Molly. Although he intends to keep it strictly business, there is an undeniable connection between Jean-Pierre and Molly.

MJ Rodriguez also stars.

Martinez first became known in his native France for his Cesar-nominated performance in IP5: L’ile aux Pachydermes. He went on to star opposite Juliette Binoche in The Horseman on the Roof and in the features Before Night Falls and Unfaithful.

Sebastián Lelio to Serve on Berlin International Film Festival Competition Jury

Sebastián Leliois ready to judge…

The Berlin International Film Festival, which gets underway next week, has revealed the competition jury for its 2019 edition, with the 44-year-old Oscar-winning Chilean-Argentine director earning a spot on the panel.

Sebastián Lelio

Lelio, who won an Academy Awardfor Best Foreign Language Film for helming A Fantastic Woman, will be joioned by German actress Sandra Hüllerand producer-director Trudie Styler.

They’ll join jury president Juliette Binocheto decide winners of the Goldenand Silver Bear awards.

Rounding out the jury are LA Times critic Justin Chang and Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Filmat New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman premiered at the festival in 2017 on its way to winning the 2018 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Binoche is a Berlinaleregular, having appeared in several competition films, including Lasse Hallstrom’s Chocolat in 2001 and Isabel Coixet’s Endless Night, which opened the festival in 2015. 

Alboran Wins Goya Award for Best Original Song

Pablo Alborán now has the equivalent of an Oscar

The 26-year-old Spanish pop star won the 2016 Goya Award for best original song at this weekends celebration of the awards frequently referred to as Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars.

Pablo Alborán

Alborán is also nominated for a Grammy in the Latin Pop category for his album Terral. He was on tour in the United States and Canada before returning to Spain to attend the Goya ceremonies in Madrid. He was the top-selling artist in Spain in 2014.

The 26-year-old sensation sings the track “Palmeras en la Nieve,” a collaboration with Lucas Vidal, who composed the soundtrack for the movie of the same name.

Vidal, who lives in Los Angeles, also took home the prize for best original score for another movie, Nadie Quiere la Noche, directed by Isabel Cloixet and starring Juliette Binoche.

The Spanish composer, a Berklee grad who has written scores for Fast & Furious 6, The Raven, and other Hollywood films, said in his acceptance speech that he hoped that his and Alborán’s wins would inspire young people to enter the music field.

Fox to Begin Rolling Out Banderas’ “The 33” in Latin American in August

The anticipation is building for Antonio Banderas’ latest film The 33 in Latin America, especially in Chile and Colombia, where the picture was filmed.

In addition to Banderas, the survival drama also stars Gabriel Byrne, Rodrigo Santoro and Juliette Binoche.

Antonio Banderas in The 33

Fox will roll out the film, which was directed by Mexico’s Patricia Riggen, across Latin America starting August 6 in Chile, after a red-carpet premiere on August 2. The premiere is expected to lure a constellation of local talent and officials, the miners as well as the film’s multinational cast and crew.

Alcon Entertainment, which snapped up the film’s distribution rights in North America and most other territories in the world, will release it through Warner Bros. in the U.S. on November 13.

The drama is based on the real events of the 2010 Chilean mining disaster in which 33 miners were trapped underground for months. A multinational effort to rescue the miners gripped a global TV audience for weeks.

Trailer views in Chile alone have numbered 6.6 million, according to 20th Century Fox Chile managing director Hernan Viviano. This is quite a significant tally given Chile’s population of 17 million, he says.

The film debuts August 20 in Colombia, along with the rest of Central America. The rollout continues across the region until October 29 in Brazil.

While most of the cave interior scenes were shot in Colombia, exterior scenes were filmed outside the actual Copiapo mine that fell in.

International Trailer Released for Banderas’ Chilean Miner Drama “The 33”

It’s mine over matter for Antonio Banderas in his latest film…

The international trailer has been released for The 33, starring the 54-year-old Spanish actor.

Antonio Banderas in The 33

Directed by Patricia Riggen, the film tells the story of the 2010 Chilean miner drama.

And the just-released trailer includes some haunting images.

Similar to how Oliver Stone took audiences inside the Twin Towers during 9/11 in World Trade Center, Riggen thrusts us in the midst of the miners’ devastating circumstances, displaying the earth falling upon them in the Copiapo, Chile caves.

The miners spent more than two months awaiting rescue as the world watched and numerous countries sent help. The U.S. sent a NASA team and an American driller.

Banderas stars as Mario Sepulveda, a miner who becomes trapped on the last day before his retirement. The film also stars Lou Diamond Phillips, Juliette Binoche, Gabriel Byrne and Rodrigo Santoro.

Mikko Alanne, Craig Borten and Michael Thomas adapted the screenplay from Hector Tobar’s book.

A U.S. release date has not been set yet.

Almodovar Receives France’s Prix Lumiere for His Lifetime Filmmaking Achievements

Pedro Almodóvar is beloved in France… And he has the prize to prove it!

The 65-year-old Spanish filmmaker has received the country’s Prix Lumiere for his lifetime filmmaking career.

Pedro Almodovar

Almodóvar was overcome by emotion during the tribute ceremony over the weekend, which was attended by members of the French film industry, as well as some of the actresses closest to him like Marisa Paredes, Rossy de Palma and Elena Anaya.

The ceremony ended with the 3,000 attendees packed into the Lyon Congress Center showing their devotion to the director, and at one point singing and dancing to “Resistire” by the Duo Dinamico.

Almodóvar closed the night’s moving festivities, which went on for more than two and a half hours, with a speech that, he said, he had prepared as if it were for a Nobel Prize and which he dedicated entirely to his mother.

Almodóvar, known for such films as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother and Talk to Her, said that his use of “explosive and saturated” colors is his act of revenge for the more than 30 years his mother spent in the “imposed” black of mourning.

Among the film icons who came to honor him were Isabella Rossellini, Paolo Sorrentino, Berenice Bejo and Keanu Reeves.

French actress Juliette Binoche presented him with the prize while shouting “Merci!” which recalled Penelope Cruz’s famous cry of “Peeeedro!” when she announced that the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film went to All About My Mother in 2000.

The prize offered by the Lumiere Institute has paid tribute every year since 2009 to an international film personality. Previous recipients include Clint Eastwood, Milos Forman, Gerard Depardieu, Ken Loach and Quentin Tarantino.

The next day, on Saturday, Almodovar announced that he has begun pre-production for his next film and that on Monday he will begin finding locations for the shoot, but specified it will take place “in various points around Spain’s geography, as well as in Madrid.”

“About the rest, the actors and other details, we’ll have time to talk about that in the coming months,” Almodovar said, after confessing that his visit to the Lumiere Festival has been a “delightful pause” in his new moviemaking project.

de Pablo to Star in the Chilean Miner Drama “The 33”

Cote de Pablo’s next project is bringing her home

The 34-year-old Chilean actress, who shocked fans last summer when she announced she was leaving her popular role on CBSNCIS, has landed her first acting role since leaving the show.

Cote de Pablo

de Pablo has been cast in The 33, a feature film based on the 2010 rescue of 33 Chilean miners who were trapped 69 days in the Copiapo gold and copper mine more than half an mile below the earth’s surface.

Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche and Rodrigo Santoro are among those already signed on to star in the film, which is now in production in Chile and Colombia with Patricia Riggen directing a script by Craig Borten (Dallas Buyers Club) and Michael Thomas.

Jennifer Lopez was originally signed on to star in The 33, but backed out of the film.

de Pablo, who was born in Chile and whose mother still lives there, will play a wife of one of the trapped miners, who became international stars following their dramatic rescue that played out live worldwide.

Her scenes will be shot in Chile’s Atacama Desert near where the actual event, and the subsequent rescue efforts took place.

First Look: Ramírez as Simón Bolívar

Édgar Ramírez’s transformation into one of the one of the most influential politicians in Latin American history is complete…

The the 35-year-old Venezuelan actor has completed his work as the star of the sweeping historical epic Libertador, which tells the story of Venezuelan military and political leader Simón Bolívar.

Edgar Ramirez in Libertador

Directed by Alberto Arvelo, Libertador follows the life of Bolivar, who was instrumental in Latin America’s struggle for independence from the Spanish empire.

Along with portraying Bolívar, Ramírez will serve as an executive producer on the project, which is considered the largest independent South American production to date.

Libertador, now in post-production.

Meanwhile, L.A. Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamelwho helped kick off the London 2012 Festival with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra—is scoring the Spanish, French and English-language pic in his feature film debut.

Ramirez, who earned critical acclaim for his performance in Carlos, will next appear on the big screen in U.S. theaters in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, which opens in December.

In France, he’s currently in theaters in An Open Heart, starring opposite Juliette Binoche