Woody Allen is set to direct his next feature in Spain.
The movie will star Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz, Gina Gershon and Wallace Shawn, as well as Sergi López (Dirty Pretty Things, Pan’s Labyrinth), French actor Louis Garrel (Godard Mon Amour) and Elena Anaya (Wonder Woman, The Skin I Live In).
The working title on the film, which is set to begin shooting in July in San Sebastian, is WASP2019.
The story centers on a married American couple who go to the San Sebastian Film Festival and get caught up in the magic of the event, the beauty and charm of Spain and the fantasy of movies. She has an affair with a brilliant French movie director, and he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish woman who lives there. The pic is a comedy-romance that resolves itself in a funny but romantic way.
The movie will be co-produced by Spain’s MediaPro Studio, along with Allen’s Gravier Production. MediaPro previously worked with Allen on his previous titles Midnight in Paris, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
The San Sebastian project is the first for Allen since the rise of the #MeToo movement, which reignited attention to the allegations of sexual abuse levied by Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adoptive daughter.
In response, Amazon Studios nixed the U.S. release of Allen’s last film, A Rainy Day in New York, starring Jude Law and Selena Gomez. Allen’s production company later filed a $68 million lawsuit against the studio in the Southern District of New York. The suit, which claimed breach of contract, alleged that Amazon attempted to terminate its four-feature agreements with the filmmaker, who was behind the Amazon series A Crisis In Six Parts and the feature Wonder Wheel, in June 2018.
The streamer, in a filed response to Allen’s lawsuit, said, “Understood in the broader context, Allen’s actions and their cascading consequences ensured that Amazon could never possibly receive the benefit of its four-picture agreement.”
A Rainy Day in New York did receive an overseas release in Italy in October via distributor Lucky Red. On May 18, the director released a trailer for the film on his Facebook page.
