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PRODUCTION / FUNDING Spain

Álex de la Iglesia scares the tourists senseless in Veneciafrenia

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- The shoot for the Spanish director’s new escapade, the first film under the new The Fear Collection banner, is taking place in Venice

Álex de la Iglesia scares the tourists senseless in Veneciafrenia
Director Álex de la Iglesia (© Borja B Hojas)

“Just you wait!” said Álex de la Iglesia (Bilbao, 1965) when, just a few months ago, he first introduced a series of features dubbed The Fear Collection, comprising a string of horror flicks that are designed to rob us of our sleep thanks to their stories bristling with monstrous lifeforms, warped characters and situations that are as outlandish as they are mind-bending, spawned from the darkest depths of his feverish and overactive imagination (see the news). And now, the first instalment in this new “Spanish Hammer” brand is well under way: called Vececiafrenia, it’s a fable about the fear of tourism, or “tourism-phobia”. It is being shot in the legendary Italian city of Venice and is being produced by Amazon Prime Video together with Pokeepsie Films, the company owned and run by the director of The Last Circus [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Álex de la Iglesia
film profile
]
, alongside actress Carolina Bang.

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Boasting a screenplay penned with his regular writing partner and irreplaceable friend Jorge Guerricaechevarría, Veneciafrenia [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
began filming in October, spreading its seven-week shoot between Italy and Madrid with an international cast made up of Ingrid García Jonsson (who thus goes straight from crooning away gaily in My Heart Goes Boom! [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nacho Álvarez
film profile
]
to screaming like a devoted student of Jamie Lee Curtis’), Silvia Alonso (outstanding in the road movie La lista de los deseos [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Goize Blanco, Nicolás Illoro, Alberto Bang, Cosimo Fusco (who also appears in 30 Coins [+see also:
series review
series profile
]
, the HBO series that is set to air this Sunday, 29 November – see the news), Enrico Lo Verso, Armando di Razza (who previously worked with de la Iglesia on The Day of the Beast), Caterina Murino and Nico Romero.

The movie tells of how, in the natural world, there is an unbreakable bond between beauty and death. Indebted to their surroundings, human beings tend to imitate whatever they see. Like mosquitoes drawn to the brightest light, tourists are eclipsing the light of the most beautiful city on the planet. The anguish of the last few decades has unleashed the rage of the Venetians. To halt the invasion, some of them have got organised, giving free rein to their instinct for survival. The main characters, a simple bunch of Spanish tourists, travel to Venice to have some fun, oblivious to the problems around them. They will soon be fighting for their very lives.

Veneciafrenia is being produced by Sony Pictures International Productions and Pokeepsie Films, in conjunction with Amazon Prime Video, and with the involvement of Mogambo Productions. It will be released in cinemas across Spain next year, courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment Iberia, and after its theatrical run, it will be available on Amazon Prime Video. The project is being supervised by Sandra Condito and Natalia Fernández, representing Sony Pictures International Productions.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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