Indefatigable Spanish producer Andres Vicente Gomez receives a tribute today from the Cannes International Film Festival. John Hopewell looks at the figure behind so many of the most daring and internationally acclaimed Spanish films ever made, as Gomez celebrates 40 years in filmmaking. 

April 1998: Gomez sits in another Madrid hotel, the well-bred Wellington. Here, the corridors of Spanish power bisect in their favourite bar. Bankers, politicians congene behind him. To his right, a reverent waiter. Before him, a fine malt whisky; his right hand sustains a triumphant Cuban cigar.  

His latest production, scumbag cop spoof Torrente, the Wrong Arm of the Law, has just grossed $8.6 million in Spain, making it the biggest local money- spinner in history. Of the 10 highest-grossing Spanish films ever, Gomez has now produced five.  

Gomez is better set up as a producer than ever before. Last year, telco Telefonica, the richest company in Spain, took a 33% in his production house Lola Films. That, for Gomez, is a strategic investment, allowing a pay-TV output deal with the Telefonica-led digital operator Via Digital and favourable relations with private broadcaster Antena 3 TV, in which Telefonica is also the main shareholder. With Telefonica on board, Lola Films now bids fair to become the biggest film and TV studio in Spain. New film distribution and TV production divisions bowed in February 1998. Lola's 1998 feature production budget stands at a minimum $35 million. 

Now, creaming the cake, comes his tribute from the Cannes Film Festival. This seems particularly apposite. Nearly half of Gomez's 40-year career has been spent working with foreigners: Gomez's first Spanish-language production – Fernando Fernan-Gomez's La Querida (The Mistress) – dates from as late as 1975. For Gomez, abroad is a second home.  

Over the last four decades, his professional battle lines have in many ways shifted very little: how do you make films out of Spain for an international market? And how do you tap finance to make such films without losing your independence? The answers he has given to these questions will explain much of recent Spanish film history.  

Silver-tongued, but hardly silver-spooned, Andres Vicente Gomez was born into a modest home in southern Madrid in 1943 while Franco was still executing Republican POWs from the Spanish Civil War. A decade later, the callous dictator contrived to place Madrid's University, the Autonoma, way out in the sticks to limit access to just the scions of the politically contrite rich.  

For biopic-makers, Gomez's story unfortunately lapses after just two months skivvying at the Zurbano, when in 1958 he met Hollywood talent agent Niels Larsen, who was putting up at the hotel. Larsen took him on. This was the making of him. Nielsen was a points man for much of Hollywood in Spain, a friend of Stanley Kubrick's: through his office filed actors such as Martha Hyer, Esther Williams, Fernando Lamas, Carlos Saura before he had made his first film. 

In a fantastically colourful early career which lasted up to the age of 31, when he broke with Orson Welles, Gomez worked with the Salkinds, on A Fistfull of Dollars, with Harry Alan Towers, El’as Querejeta and Dennis Hooper; managed a pop group – Los Brincos; lived for two years in London; made a documentary for Unicef, presented by Robert Kennedy.  

"[Gomez] has a fantastically strategic mind," says one source, who has watched him negotiate. "He can draw up an agenda in a second, push it through if possible and see that everyone else is satisfied," he says. "He's very tenacious. He struggled for years to make Perdita Durango and won. Many other producers would have given up," says writer Barry Gifford, upon whose novel Perdita was based. Such qualities could be native nous. But Gomez was educated in the school of foreign executive suites.  

These early, seminal, years have left large professional hostages to fortune beyond the burnished habits of the old-style producer brandishing the big cigar for the big occasion.  

A first is the way in which Gomez conceives film production. Having met Larsen "I was hell-bent on learning English. There was a Motion Picture Almanac in his office and I spent the day reading the biographies of the director and actors in Hollywood. My professional instincts became closer to foreign film-making than to the national cinema," he recalls. While many Spanish producers are fussy directors manques, fastidiously supervising film shoots, Gomez (like, say, Sir David Puttnam) has his fortes in the first and third parts of the production process: setting up the financial deal and nursing the film for the market. "There are two schools of producers," he told Spanish daily El Mundo in 1996: "Those who like to be all the time beside the camera trying to direct by proxy. And then the big producers, those big names you find in film books, who direct films from their offices. I'd like to think I'm in that second group." 

On Beltenebrosa (1991), the political period thriller which won Pilar Miro a Silver Bear at Berlin, Gomez only visited the set two or three times: line production he leaves to trusted line producers.  

Yet in a land where a film's being "in development" means it hasn't starting shooting yet, Gomez is almost a development freak. "I would have liked to have worked far more on the script," he wrote in the introduction to Owen Thompson's record of how Beltenebrosa got made, Secret Story of a Shoot. "But the lack of habit of doing so, which is typical in Spain, the resistance of screenwriters to change their work and the need – because of actors' dates – to start shooting at a concrete date, all this meant that the script had to go on being changed during the shoot, which is common in European film-making in contrast to US cinema." 

Above all, perhaps, there is the scale of Gomez's imagination, the giddy sweep of his ambition: the big cigar and the big film for the big occasion.  

What links the three films (El Dorado, The Mad Monkey, Perdita Durango) which Gomez has chosen to represent his career at Cannes? All three are set outside Spain, two were made in English, all underperformed at home but sold worldwide; all gave off the drug which Gomez craves – risk... 

Gomez never does things by halves, or tens, or hundreds, but thousands, even millions. "I remember Michel Salkind's wife saying, 'Michel will never have any money because he's got too much imagination,'" says Gomez. Many other Spanish producers have remained tapped to the dual drip-feeds of subsidies and TV financing. Never one to eek out a career, Gomez has produced the Spanish film (to date) about the conquest of Latin America, El Dorado (1988), the Spanish film to date about the Spanish Civil War, Vicente Aranda's Libertarias (1996), the only Spanish film to use a blue-chip Hollywood cast, Fernando Trueba's Two Much (with Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith and Daryll Hannah). Victor Erice's upcoming El embrujo de Shanghai (The Shanghai Gesture) has the makings of a superb international art-house pic, but it is budgeted at $6 million and could last two and a half hours; on paper Alex de la Iglesia's The Trap of Fu Manchu could cost $20 million.  

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself? 

Gomez's challenge has been to cushion and control this ambition, tapping top talent, great projects and solid financing lines, while still having the freedom to work. After 40 years in the entertainment business, all four factors have, arguably, only come together this year.  

Gomez made his first film as a fully-fledged producer in 1968: the paella western White Comanche. From 1972 he pinned his hopes to the teetering mast of Orson Welles. From 1975 he tried to produce Spanish films in Spanish. But apart from Antonio Drove their directors – Fernando Fernan Gomez on La Querida, or Francesc Betriu with La viuda andaluza (The Andalusian Widow) – were often not on top form, or their films seem R&D, such as Corridas de  alegria (something like "Sperms of Joy"), a rough, ready and raunchy road trip through Andalusia.  

A first breakthrough came in 1983 when Gomez teamed with Gonzalo Suarez on a TV drama series for pubcaster Rtve, Los pazos de Ulloa (The Ulloa Ducks), a BBC-ish adaptation  of a nineteenth century novel, part-George Eliot part-Nancy Mitford, and a stinging portrait of abject rural life in Galicia. 
 
Films and friendships followed, with Fernando Trueba, from Se infiel y no mires con quien (Move Over Mrs Markham), Carlos Saura, from El Dorado, Bigas Luna, kicking with Las edades de Lulu (The Ages of Lulu) and Pilar Miro (Beltenebros).  

"A producer's birth is professional. His work – the films he produces – don't have direct personal references," Gomez argues. But a producer's personal tastes are reflected in the directors or screenwriters he chooses. In 1975, Gomez met Carmen Rico-Godoy, his companion since then, the daughter of one of Spain's first and most distinguished women journalists, and a witty columnist in her own right in the pages of Cambio 16, the think-tank of Spain's democratic left. Spain celebrated its first general elections in June 1977. Yet most Spaniards believed that there were further changes to be put through. In Spanish terms, Gomez's productions are classy mainstream. They vary vastly in production styles. Yet by the mid-80s Gomez had established a fertile production line. However entertaining, his films touched a national nerve: they celebrated Spain's first flush of sexual  (Belle epoque) and intellectual (Rowing With the Wind) freedom, and they curse the sexual (Aranda's psychic thrillers) and social (Bigas Luna's comic melodramas) fences still to be climbed. 

By 1990, Gomez's stable of directors boasted, arguably, most of Spain's top studs. Younger bloodstock – Alex de la Iglesia, David Trueba and Santiago Segura – have joined slightly later  Gomez still claims that he feels "an outsider". Yet a premiere of one of his films is the closest that Spain gets to a gathering of its film community. He now has 36 films in development.  

One challenge has remained: how to forge financial stability in a notoriously frail industry, plagued by financing crisis. That story, spanning the 90s, is no bio-pic but a frustrating tragi-comedy (the thwarted Eurotrustees pact), a fraught buddy movie (Lola's production alliance with Sogecable) and a seemingly happy end: the recreation at Lola Films of a film and TV studio.  

***** 

What They Think of Gomez 

AndresVicente Gomez has worked with many of the most prestigious artists and professionals in the business. Carlos Saura, Rafael Azcona, Alex de la Iglesia, David Trueba, Enrique de las Casas and Antonio Saura profile Gomez. 

Carlos Saura 
In the celluloid universe there are producers who love cinema as much as they love risk. They are passionate enough to fight to defend it. But these are exceptions at a time when financiers and banks rule the roost. 

AndresVicente Gomezis one who has sold his soul to cinema. He loves it and would probably risk all for it. He could be one of those legendary adventurers who conquers new lands, opening up new horizons. Like the great heroes of yore crossing surging rivers and trying to crown the highest mountains. They are men who have made themselves while struggling against the elements, sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile. 

They are masters of many trades, especially discovering new talent and embarking on projects which might seem like madness to others. I've seen him triumph against all the odds and achieve spectacular success but occasionally, not unexpectedly, suffer resounding failure.  

Above all, Andresis charming, tenacious, intelligent and sensitive. And what more can you ask for from someone who produces films? 

*The grand master of Spanish cinema, Carlos Saura has been directing for the past thirty nine years. His much-acclaimed body of work includes El Dorado (1988), !Ay, Carmela! (1990) and Marathon (1993) for AndresVicenteGomez.  

Rafael Azcona: 
four or five things I know about him  
1. MPI: How would you describe Mr Gomez? Do you have any anecdotes? 
Rafael Azcona: Many years ago, AndresVicente Gomezremarked on a plane flight: "I don't want to make one film a year: I want to make twelve." At the time, I put his euphoria down to a touch of altitude sickness. But now I know that he had his feet on the ground. 

2. MPI: His nombre (name) has changed (from "AndresVicente" to "Andres"). And his fame? 
RA: His nombre has got shorter; his renomobre (renown) has grown. 

3. MPI: Have the films he produces changed too? 
RA: You obviously can't – and shouldn't – make the same film all the time, especially if you produce so many: Andreshas contributed – substantially – to widening the range of genres used in recent Spanish filmmaking. 

4. MPI: How would you describe him as a producer? Does he work a lot with screenwriters?  
RA: Determined, impetuous, daring: all of which is summed up I think by the adjective "lanzado". Of course he has something to say about the screenplay: you would expect him to do so. (Ennio Flaianno once said that scripts end up being written by screenwriters because producers, directors, actors, cinematographers and so on don't have time to write them). Returning to Andres, it's my impression at least that he's becoming increasingly cautious – and responsible – regarding screenplays. 

5. MPI: Despite this homage, Mr.Gomez's career, one senses, is far from over... 
RA: With or without a tribute, Andreshas it in him to produce as many, or more, new films than he's made up to now – which I reckon must number some around 80 by now. 

* Screenwriter and novelist Rafael Azcona has scripted many of the acclaimed masterpieces of the Spanish cinema, including the Spanish comedies of Marco Ferreri and most of Berlanga films. He co-wrote Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque.  

Alex de la Iglesia: 
I always preferred Long John Silver. Doctor Livesey and Mr Trelawney were good people, but you wouldn't expect anything exciting from them. Well, if your aim in life is to stay out of trouble, and have tea warmed by a gas fire, then they were your men. Unfortunately, such things have never been on my agenda. 

When I read Treasure Island at the age of twelve, I discovered the emotion of adventure, the importance of friendship above and beyond any other feeling, the bitter – but exquisite – savour of danger. Now I know that I can only achieve these things in real life by shooting films. So I've always dreamt of being a friend of Long John Silver, someone about whom people would tell appalling stories, hated by some, worshipped by others, feared by everyone. But, above all, he was the most daring, the best pirate ever. This is cannot be doubted: his exploits, the ships he boarded, and the ports he stormed were there for everybody to see for themselves. 

Well, I think I can say, having made El d’a de la bestia and Perdita Durango, that I've found Long John Silver. Congratulations, pirate..  

* Alex de la Iglesia is one of Spain's most acclaimed young film directors. He has directed El d’a de la bestia (The Day of the Beast, 1995) and Perdita Durango (1997) for Lola Films.  

David Trueba 
You'll ask any jobbing producer to have imagination, a sense of calculated risk, and that he observes his contracts. What's not so usual is for a producer to have an astounding knack of recounting stories. Andresdoes. His personality as a producer is seen in the films he makes. But I always ask myself where he get his eloquence from, his brilliant way of telling anecdotes which range from his precocious adolescence with the Salkind family right through to his latest meeting with a reticent actor. Told by him, they are all gems, magnificent anecdotes which vary in style from Dostoyevsky to John Grisham. 

Andres' memories are a mine which still has to be explored. Perhaps the only mine which he hasn't yet taken gold out of. He's reserving it for the moment for private conversations with friends. I still listen to him with the fascinated face of a child. I'm dreaming of the day when he decides to write his memoirs. I've already offered my services as a ghost-writer. 

*David Trueba is another key figure in Spain's new generation of cineastes. An admired screenwriter, he made his directorial debut with the La Buena Vida, sold successfully overseas last Cannes by Lola Films International (LFI).  

Enrique de las Casas: 
For myself it is a great pleasure and an honour to be asked to write a few lines about the career of AndresViucente Gomez. I think the best way to describe the qualities which define AndresVicente Gomez as a producer is to use two Anglo-saxon words that form part of the vocabulary of the global film industry; I think that AndresVicente Gomez is 'great' director and also a 'special' human being. 

I have been involved in cinema and TV production for many years, and I can say that for the whole of this period, from the time I first got to know him, that Andres had something in him that I always suspected and which was confirmed only too clearly in the period 1986 – 1994 when I worked with him side by side. AndresVicente Gomez is not only a great Spanish film producer; he is the best of his generation, and one with an international reputation. For this he deserves this homage at Cannes.  

I won't go into details here about the many films which he has produced over the course of his career, in the ever-difficult circumstances of the Spanish film industry, nor mention that the fruits of the labour included the winning of an Oscar. What interests me here is the reason why he can properly be seen as a model. 

Andres has, I think, two paradigm virtues as an independent producer on the world stage. First, he possesses an unusual level of intelligence and intuition, and it is these qualities which allow him to generate outstanding ideas and to involve himself creatively in the whole filmmaking process from beginning to end. It is for this reason that no film ever carries a trademark stamped 'Andres.' Rather, he succeeds in getting the very best out of everyone who works with him. Andresgives people confidence. Secondly, Andreshas a phenomenal grasp of risk – in my opinion controlled risk – an absolutely indispensable quality in any film producer.  

With these two virtues, which I am sure will always remain with him, I sincerely believe that Andreswill succeed in being described for a long time as a man both 'great' and 'special' in the world of cinema. 

*A former director of Spanish public broadcaster Rtve, Enrique de las Casas is deputy vice president of Spain's Fapae producer's body.  

Antonio Saura: 
AndresVicente Gomezis an exceptional producer: there are few producers like him around. Perhaps the most difficult thing in this business is to have good ideas. Andres' biggest problem is to control the torrent of ideas which occur to him.. The second most difficult thing in this profession could be networking. Andressurprises you constantly by his sheer ubiquity: wherever you go he's there, and he knows everyone. And if the third most difficult thing in our sector is to ensure a continuity in your associates, Andreswill once more surprise you by his loyalty to ideas, to people, to projects he shares with them. 

Over the last six years, Andres has been the president of the Media Business School, which I have had the honour of directing in that time. While other professionals ignore or despise training as a waste of time, Andres has given it invaluable time, and has been crucial in consolidating the work of the MBS. He has a large ability to harness talent, and he has used this for the benefit of other European professionals, playing a large part in the publication of studies and the organisation of seminars, conferences, and an exemplary Masters Programme. I sometimes wonder what drives him to continue with all this? I always come back to the same answer. It's a simple case of passion: he loves films: he still dreams of this industry occupying its rightful position as the best in the world. 

* Antonio Saura is the director of the Media Business School (MBS), the largest of the Media Programme's training initiatives. He worked as head of development at Lola Films between 1994 and 1996.  

***** 

The top 10 highest-grossing films in Spain and their producers. 

Five of the top 10 highest-grossing Spanish films ever were produced by Andres Vicente Gomez – and three more were from Agustin Almodovar. 
  
1. Torrente, the Wrong Arm of the Law (Santiago Segura, 1998),  
Andres Vicente Gomez, $9.5 million 

2. Airbag (Juanma Bajo Ulloa, 1997), 
Adi Lipp, $7.8 million 

3. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodovar, 1988), 
 Agustin Almodovar, $7.7 million 

4. Two Much (Fernando Trueba, 1995), 
Andres Vicente Gomez, $7.5 million 

5. Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenabar, 1997), 
Jose Luis Cuerda, $7.2 million 

6. High Heels (Pedro Almodovar, 1991), 
Agustin Almodovar, $5.7 million 

7. Belle Epoque (Fernando Trueba, 1992), 
Andres Vicente Gomez, $5.6 million 

8. Live Flesh (Pedro Almodovar, 1997), 
Agustin Almodovar, $5.2 million 

9. The Day of the Beast (Alex de la Iglesia, 1995), 
Andres Vicente Gomez, $4.8 million 

10. Turkish Passion (Vicente Aranda, 1994), 
Andres Vicente Gomez, $4.1 million 

***** 

Gomez's 40 years in entertainment have culminated in the creation of a mini-major – Lola Films – with tentacles in film and TV production, distribution and record publishing.  

This February, Spain's biggest film production house, Andres Vicente Gomez's Lola Films, embarked on a radical diversification, forging a film studio to rival that of film and TV conglom Sogecable. The most dramatic moves in across-the-board expansion included: 

* The creation of Lola Distribucion. While at last year's Mifed, Lola optioned five pics from Steve Bickel's The Shooting Gallery, including Cannes competition player Henry Fool, Lola is now setting out to acquire "six to seven big, mainstream US films a year", with $30 million plus budgets, according to Lola MD Gomez. Jose Luis Guimare was named general manager of Lola's new stand-alone theatrical operation; Douglas Wilson, Lola's former head of international affairs, became head of acquisitions. At the AFM, Lola made an immediate sales splash buying Capitol's Rogue Trader; Left Luggage, from Trident; and The Lost Son from Le Studio Canal Plus. 

*The re-launch of TV production under the Lola Films banner, headed up by Marco Gomez. First up is TV sitcom Freaks by Alex de la Iglesia for Via Digital and TeleMadrid, turning on the antics of Spain's secret service; and a sitcom Petra Delicada for Antena 3 TV, starring Ana Belen. 

*A two-year alliance with Vine International for Marie Vine's UK-based sales agent to handle international sales on all Lola's big upcoming movies. "There are some great directors coming through after Carlos Saura and Pedro Almodovar and Andres [Vicente Gomez] is the producer who brings this talent out," Marie Vine, ceo at Vine International, said at the time. "A foreign sales company needs at least 10 to 12 films a year, and Lola on its own cannot supply that number," Gomez added.  

*Record label Lola Records, which will publish Lola film soundtracks, plus a jazz collection to be orchestrated by top Spanish film director Fernando Trueba (Belle epoque, Two Much).  

*The entry into legit production, bowed by a Trueba-directed staging of Ben Hecht's Front Page, skedded for 1999. 

*The re-creation of a development division, headed up by Jose Garasino. 
  

The key to Lola's explosive expansion has been the involvement of Spain's richest company, Spanish telco Telefonica, whose turnover increased 18% in 1997 to $15.5 billion. Telefonica's original goal was cable TV in Spain. But throughout the early 90s Felipe Gonzalez's socialist government pussyfooted around passing enabling-cable-TV legislation in Spain. In September 1996, film- and TV-holding Sogecable, controlled by giant French pay-box Canal Plus and Spanish publishing empire Prisa, announced that it would launch a digital TV operation, CanalSatelite Digital. With cable TV still on the back-burner, Telefonica leapt at the chance to enter satellite TV as a bridging movement into cable, taking a leading stake (now 25%) in CSD rival Via Digital, a joint venture with pubcaster Rtve (17%) and Mexico's Televisa (17%). Telefonica's dramatic entry into TV continued when it bought up a controlling 25% participation in Spain's top-rated private TV network Antena 3 TV in July 1997.  

Of all the telecoms in all the world, only US West, through its partnership with Time Warner, has such a commitment to contents creation and provision. According to Eduardo Alonso, director of Telefonica Multimedia at the time, the purchase of Antena 3 TV dovetails into the telco's global strategy. "Telefonica aims to be a global service provider. It has to participate in the contents industry and Antena 3 TV is an important buyer, producer and distributor of contents," said Alonso of the purchase.  

The main charge laid at the feet of telecoms entering contents provision is that they are treading unknown ground. "The businesses are different. The contents business is related to a creative process, and telecommunications with technology. They aren't necessarily complementary," Robert Rich, vice president of Telecommunications Research & Consulting for the Yankee Group, is quoted as saying. 

But in its forage into production, Telefonica has wisely sought out jackets rather than suits, ex-producers Pedro Perez and Juan Ru’z de Gauna, as president and MD of Via Digital, and, most clearly of all, Andres Vicente Gomez. 

In mid-1997 Telef—nica took a 33% stake in Lola Films. Gomez retains 33%, publishing house Planeta Agostini has 23% and merchant bank Gestcapital (10%) holds the rest. 
Gomez has always drawn a distinction between two types of film: the first is a "Spanish-language film between $2 million and $2.5 million, which makes money back from Spain, and raises some interest abroad, in Latin America, say"; for the second, "above $5 to $6 million, it's absolutely necessary to shoot in English and make sure that the contents favour an English-language shoot," he maintains. Both can turn profits (see table above), but need secure financing. 

The alliance with Telefonica marks a third attempt by Gomez to match secure – and substantial – funding for the second type of film in particular. In 1990 Gomez became a founding member of Eurotrustees, an attempt by five producer/distributors (most notably Gomez at Iberoamericana in Spain, Nik Powell and Steve Woolley's Palace Pictures in the UK, and Jean Labadie's Bac Films in France) to pool production funding and distribution channels to finance an ambitious roster of international pics. But after problems securing stable partners in Germany and Italy, the five producers could not agree on which projects to back. By September 1991, when Eurotrustees began to fold, it had greenlit only one film, Neil Jordan's The Soldier's Wife, better known as The Crying Game. 

Gomez's second grand alliance marked a joint venture between Spain's most ambitious film producer – Gomez – and its most expansive media company, Prisa. In June 1994 they pacted for Gomez to co-produce a 24- to 30-feature slate over the next three years with Prisa's production arm Sogetel. Gomez also took out 49% in the Prisa-owned international film sales company Sogepaq International. "Now, said Gomez, "all I have to do is to produce the films."  

Although the pact's results were mixed, including as its commercial best Two Much and El d’a de la bestia (The Day of the Beast), it didn't prove so simple, and suggests perhaps some temperamental downside of corporate financing for producers who have always been their own men, and desire manoeuvrability in budgets and risk-taking. The alliance had effectively collapsed by the end of 1996. "The split was amicable," says Gomez. The pact's problem was that "I had to spend 80% of my time justifying decisions before committees. I'd rather be responsible for my own decisions, good or bad."  

Gomez's new partnership with Telefonica is a better fit, he maintains: "Its interest isn't so much in strengthening Lola's balance sheet as in increasing my capability to produce the films I want to make. He now has the freedom to greenlight films up to a total budget of $35 million a year.  

Beyond this, he has helped shield the Achilles heel of Spanish film industry: accessing continuous TV financing. It was the drastic cutback in Rtve film-financing (both in international acquisitions and Spanish film pre-sales) that forced Gomez out of distribution in 1992. Now he has forged an output pay-TV deal with Via Digital and is "on excellent terms" with Antena 3 TV. "I think my situation  
is better than it has ever been before," says Gomez.  

But with new films by Fernando Trueba, Victor Erice and Alex de la Iglesia, the best may still be to come. 

***** 

Uping the Ante 

The Andres Vicente Gomez pre-millennial slate looks to mix the commercial and the quality art-house in a way which his back catalogue has already made familiar. But the budgets are higher, two are in English, one could be the costliest Spanish film  
ever made:  

El embrujo de Shanghai (The Shanghai Gesture)  
Victor Erice, who has made three movies in 25 years – The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), The South (1982), The Quince-Tree Sun (1992) – classics all, brings Juan Marse's prize-winning novel to the screen. Set in Barcelona in the years following the Spanish Civil War, the film is about the return of Forcat, a forger of passports, to his home town, and the strange relationship he develops with two children. 

An exploration of the importance of the imagination as a defence against harsh reality, the film should combine, Erice-style, a leisurely pace with a vice-like grip on the senses and gold-plated craftsmanship. Shooting to start in August in Barcelona and Madrid with a $6m budget. 

La nina de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams) 
The 1992 Oscar-winner Fernando Trueba returns to the Spanish language after the disappointments of his 1996 Banderas/Griffith vehicle Two Much.  

During a 1938 visit by a group of Spanish filmmakers to the UFA studios – the result of good German/Spanish relations – Nazi propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels falls in love, understandably, with Penelope Cruz, playing actress Macarena Granada. A combination of youth (David Trueba) and experience (Rafael Azcona) in the scriptwriting team, an epic sweep; Penelope Cruz's increasing international appeal; and the Trueba name make this irreverent comedy one to watch out for. To be shot in Prague, the budget is around $6m. 

Sax-Rohmer's The Fiendish Trap of Fu Manchu 
The second Shanghai pic on Gomez's list. Alex de la Iglesia – El d’a de la bestia (1995), Perdita Durango (1997) – tells the snappily titled tale of a man who mysteriously ends up in that most exotic of locations without knowing how he came to be there (otherwise known as Cannes syndrome). A hefty $20m budget shows that faith in the director  
with the churchlike name remains undimmed, despite the less-than-delirious response to his epic Perdita Durango.  

De la Iglesia has still to make the film he is capable of: will this be the one? Likely to draw forth adjectives like "delirious" and "frenzied" from the critics. Set to start shooting in Shanghai and London in October 98. 

No se lo digas a nadie (Don't Tell Anyone)  
Another film with literary roots, this time Jaime Bayly's homonymous novel. This tale of the double burden, for a young man, of being gay and middle-class is about Joaquin, who fights for his pride.  

Directed by Peruvian Francisco Lombardi, the film stars Santiago Magull, Lucia Jimenez and Carmen Elias. Look for low-key perceptiveness. Shot in Lima, Peru, and Miami, the $2.5m film is now in post-production.  

A Sweet Scent 
Based on a novel by Guillermo Arriaga of the same title, this Gabriel Retes-directed thriller puts together a strong cast (Karra ("Airbag" Elejalde, Ana Alv‡rez) in a story about the murder of a teenage girl and her avenger, with local anti-gypsy sentiment an underlying theme. 

It's a Spanish/Mexican/Argentinian co-production, budgeted at $3m, and starts shooting this month. 

La Marcha Verde (The Green March) 
Veteran Jose Luis Garcia Sanchez takes on the theme of Franco at the end of his life in this comedy musical. With the "Caudillo" on his last legs, political tension increases in the Spanish Sahara, and Moroccan rebels open up a political/military campaign against Spanish interests. To calm matters down on the Spanish side, a cabaret troupe is brought in from the peninsula. 

Expect bitter laughter from the Rafael Azcona-scripted tale, budgeted at $2.5m and still in development. 

Gaudi Afternoon 
Susan Seidelman directs this comedy – based on a Barbara Wilson novel – about Cassandra, a down-on-her-luck translator in Barcelona, helping a woman hunt for her husband. Suddenly she finds herself in a nightmarish world where genders have swapped.  
Expect a combination of delicacy and quirkiness with feminist overtones. Set to start shooting in Barcelona in September 1998 with an $8m budget.