The Sleeping Woman

Source: Julio Vergne

The Sleeping Woman

Lighthouse Home Entertainnent has acquired German rights to Laura Alvea’s feature debut supernatural thriller The Sleeping Woman from Barcelona-based Filmax, following its world premiere out of competition at the Malaga Film Festival in Spain this month.

The film sparked buyer interest at the EFM selling to India and subcontinent (BookMyShow), Taiwán (Cai Chang International), Korea (Behind the Scene Company) and Indonesia (Sun Pictures). 

The psychological thriller stars Almudena Amor as a nursing assistant to whom strange things start happening when she becomes attracted to the husband of a woman for whom she’s caring. Javier Rey co-stars.

The Sleeping Woman is co-written by Miguel Ibáñez Monroy, Daniel González and Marta Armengol and produced by Olmo Figueredo González-Quevedo at La Claqueta and Marta Ramírez at Coming Soon Films. Alvea’s credits include directing episodes of Netflix’s Spanish series The Snow Girl.

The film was shot in Seville and the Canary Islands and will be released in Spain on May 31 by Filmax.

“As a genre, the psychological thriller is very sought after, very marketable and popular in a lot of countries,” said Iván Díaz, head of international at Filmax. “We are positive we will be able to close more territories between Malaga and Cannes.”

Busy market 

At the Mafiz, the industry zone of the Malaga Film Festival, Filmax said there was buzz on a couple of its other titles.notably Paticia Font’s  Spanish Civil War drama and Mafiz market screening The Teacher Who Promised The Sea, that has performed well at the Spanish box office. Filmax closed deals with Italy and Scandinavia at the EFM and the company said it is in talks with buyers from Germany, Poland and LatAm.

Andrea Jaurrieta’s second feature Nina, selected for Malaga’s competition, has also received “good feedback” from buyers, said Díaz, while Filmax’s second competition title, Pájaros (Birds Flying East) “has also benefited from the Malaga spotlight”, he added.