SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain -- In early San Sebastian business, German sales agent Media Luna has taken worldwide rights outside Spain to Asier Altuna and Telmo Esnal's Basque social comedy "Aupa Etxebeste!" (Go Etxebeste!).
The duo's directorial debut, "Go!" concerns a broke but proud family who spend their holiday hiding at home to avoid advertising their penury as the father prepares to run for mayor.
Pic is the first Basque-language feature in 15 years, said producer Jose Maria Lara of Alokatu. Irusoin's Inaki Gomez also produced.
The film, which plays in fest's main Zabaltegi sidebar, will preem here on Thursday. Its Spanish producers plan to have a Basque band on hand as pic's actors appear in a crane-towed car, reenacting the film's final sequence.
Media Luna's pickup of "Go!" follows upbeat business on Spaniard Miguel Albaladejo's "Bear Cub," which has sold in the U.S. to TLA Releasing for DVD/theatrical and to HBO and now Here! TV for pay.
In other fest news, Spain's culture minister, Carmen Calvo, announced Monday that the government will hold a film congress in January to mull changes to film legislation.
Move comes just days after the Spanish Film Platform, a trade umbrella body, threatened to publish a list of complaints about state film policy.
The congress will mull a possible increase in Spain's ICAA central subsidy fund, the launch of a state-backed bank guarantee scheme, the enforcement of Spain's exhibition screen quota for European films and a hike in state aid for independent production.
Glaringly absent from the agenda is a hike in film tax breaks, currently the numero uno industry war cry.
Tax exemptions run at 5% in Spain. Pedro Perez, prexy of Spain's Fapae producers org, called Friday for the government to increase them to 20%.
Calvo said the congress would involve Spain's finance and industry ministries. That suggests a possible step up in breaks for 2007 but not before.
In other news, Irene Jacob will star opposite Argentine Ricardo Darin ("The Son of the Bride," "The Dawn") in Jose Luis Cuerda's "La Educacion de un hada" (The Education of a Fairy), which was presented at San Sebastian on Monday.
Darin plays a toy inventor who falls in love with Jacob's ornithologist.
Rolling on Oct. 14, pic is produced by Spain's Tornasol Films, Messidor Films and Finales Felices, France's Lazzenec, Argentina's Pol-ka, and Portugal's Madragoa Prods.
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