Alex de la Iglesia, Spain’s most prominent black comedy helmer, has teamed with powerful Spanish producer Enrique Cerezo on horror laffer Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (Witching & Bitching).
Vicente Canales’ Barcelona-based sales company Film Factory Ent. has picked up
Witching’s international sales rights.
“It is an outrageous comedy, in the line of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but an horror
comedy,” De la Iglesia told Variety.
Pic turns on a robber band trying to flee to France after purloining 25,000 gold rings, but they fall into the clutches of the witches of the Navarrese town of Zugarramurdi.
Rolling from Oct. 1 on location in Zugarramurdi for two weeks, production will continue
for seven more weeks in Madrid.
Witching’s ensemble, highly commercial cast boasts some of Spain’s biggest film- TV stars, such as Mario Casas (I Want You), Hugo Silva (Sex, Parties and Lies) and Carmen
Maura, who earned a best actress award at San Sebastian in 2000 for her performance in De la Iglesia’s Commonwealth. Further cast members are Terele Pávez, Carolina Bang, Secun de la Rosa, Pepón Nieto and Jaime Ordóñez.
“We have brought together one of the most important casts in Spain in years, along with the best Spanish film director,” producer Enrique Cerezo told Variety in San Sebastian.
“This should be one of the biggest film sensations in Spain for 2013,” he added.
Pic is budgeted at Euros6 million ($7.8 million). Pubcaster TVE and paybox Canal Plus
pre-bought the film, said production manager Carlos Bernases.
E.P.