Spanish companies are busy setting up business deals on theeve of the first winter festivals and markets in Sundance and Berlin.

Spanishsales consortium Grupo Pi has picked up international rights on directorMariano Barroso's Ants In The Mouth (Hormigas En La Boca), a romanticthriller set in 1958 Cuba and starring Ariadna Gil, Eduard Fernandez, SamuelClaxton and Jorge Perugorria.

The film was a co-production between Spain's Cartel andMessidor Films, and Cuba's ICAIC, but Cartel has since been folded into newcompany Drive Entertainment, launched by former Canal Plus Spain generalmanager Jose Manuel Lorenzo.

Grupo Pi's newly-promoted general manager Geraldine Gonardconfirms that the sales outfit will maintain the same preferential relationshipwith Drive as it had with Cartel, one of the founding partners of theconsortium. The company will debut Ants as well as Juanma Bajo Ulloa'snew film Fragil at the European Film Market in Berlin.

Also in Berlin, salesconsortium Latido will debut a new slate of films picked up from Spanishproducer Alquimia Cinema, including footage from Marcelo Pineyro's latestfeature, The Gronholm Conspiracy (El Metodo Gronholm), starring EduardoNoriega and Najwa Nimri.

Latido is meanwhile rumoured to be closing a US deal on JoaquinOristrell's Unconscious (Inconscientes), starring Leonor Watling andcompeting in the World Cinema Competition at Sundance.

Distributionand sales company Aurum Producciones has picked up international rights on twonew films it will take to Berlin: Bagdad Rap, a documentary about thehorrors of the Iraq war set to rap and hip-hop by music producer and filmmakerArturo Cisneros Samper; and Cayetana Guillen Cuervo-starrer La MiradaVioleta, a drama about finding love which opened the last edition of theSpanish Film Festival of Malaga.

Finally, sales company Lumina Films closed a high-profilesale to Tarak Ben Ammar's Quinta Communications for French distribution rightson Spanish animated feature Midsummer Dream, the new film from themakers of international hit The Living Forest (El Bosque Animado).

Lumina production and acquisitions manager Marina Fuentessays casting is underway for the English track of the film, to be done by theUK's Magic Light Ltd. Producer-songwriter Cameron McVey will produce the musicfor the film, a Shakespeare-inspired tale of a magic world in jeopardy whenhumans stop dreaming.

A multiple-territory release on Midsummer is plannedfor late June in parts of Europe, where the title has also sold to Medusa inItaly, Lusomundo in Portugal, Cinemien in Benelux and PCV in Greece. Lumina hasalso sold the film widely across Asia, the Middle East and to Beverly HillsEntertainment for all Latin America.