<\/p>\n
International film sales agency MoreThan Films has picked up sales rights to Ion de Sosa\u2019s \u201cBalearic\u201d ahead of its world premiere as part of the Filmmakers of the Present section at the Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16).<\/p>\n
\u201cBalearic\u201d begins with a group of teenagers on a Mediterranean island who stumble upon a big house with a pool and decide to take an illicit dip that takes a much darker turn once three large dogs come to guard the property. From there, Sosa moves the story a few miles away to follow a group of wealthy neighbors gathered at a luxurious villa to celebrate the start of summer and St. John\u2019s Eve. While all this happens, a wildfire breaks nearby, inching slowly towards the celebrations as techno music blasts in the background.<\/p>\n
More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sosa is a director and cinematographer whose previous films have premiered at prestigious festivals such as Berlin (\u201cAndroids Dream\u201d) and San Sebastian (\u201cMam\u00e1ntula\u201d). As a cinematographer, Ion de Sosa has worked on films such as \u201cAliens\u201d by Luis L\u00f3pez Carrasco and \u201cThe Sacred Spirit\u201d by Chema Garc\u00eda Ibarra. \u201cBalearic\u201d stars an ensemble cast including Luka Peros (\u201cMoney Heist\u201d), veteran Spanish singer Christina Rosenvinge, Manolo Mar\u00edn (\u201cLove, Hate, and Death\u201d) and Zorion Eguileor (\u201cThe Platform\u201d).<\/p>\n Speaking with Variety <\/em>ahead of Locarno, Sosa recalls the first seeds for the project coinciding with his turning 40 and entering a \u201csort of midlife crisis.\u201d \u201cI began looking at how young and older people communicate and also at myself critically and wondering what I was doing, if any, to make the world a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI started with the idea of young people trapped in a swimming pool and the three dogs as Greek symbols of what they had to overcome as a generation: exploitation at work, environmental disaster and the loss of liberties,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t want it to be a survival movie, I wanted to have a split in the film where I asked myself where the adults were, and the answer was at a party.\u201d<\/p>\n Once de Sosa had that split between the young and the older, he began looking at influences such as John Huston and David Hockney\u2019s classic \u201cThe Swimmer.\u201d \u201cI felt there was an interesting mixture of atmospheres to explore and I liked the idea of making two parallel worlds that could touch across the water but had no other relation.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the film is named after the Spanish archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, de Sosa wanted the story to take place on an imagined island, and shot most of the film in Valencia due to funding streams and ease of logistics. \u201cAn island allows you to create a small ecosystem and situations that can only happen in that place. Balearic, in the film, is an invented island, a small universe in itself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t see the sea,\u201d points out the director. \u201cEveryone is talking about it, but we don\u2019t see it. It\u2019s maybe a little bit about getting yourself lost in your privilege and forgetting about the whole world outside of that. I like this idea of enjoyment from the point of view of privilege while also looking at new generations and their focus on self-enjoyment.\u201d<\/p>\n In this, de Sosa was clearly inspired by the work of acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ruben \u00d6stlund, especially \u201cTriangle of Sadness,\u201d but the director also highlights Jonathan Glazer\u2019s Oscar-winning \u201cThe Zone of Interest\u201d as a guiding point of reference for the \u201cmasterful\u201d way it toes the line between two starkly different worlds that exist as neighbors.<\/p>\n For \u201cBalearic,\u201d de Sosa worked with several new collaborators, including creatives who had not worked on a feature film before. Amongst those, the director highlights cinematographer Cris Neira \u2014 who worked in Cinemascope inspired by the work of Sergio Leone \u2014 and young musician Xenia, who wrote the film\u2019s throbbing techno score after being approached by the director. \u201cXenia understood from the beginning what I wanted from the music in the film,\u201d added de Sosa, highlighting the tightness of the beating music juxtaposed against the vastness of the cinematography.<\/p>\n Queralt Pons Serra, managing partner at MoreThan Films, tells Variety <\/em>they are \u201cthrilled\u201d to acquire \u201cBalearic,\u201d calling it a film that \u201cimmediately stood out for its fearless approach to genre, sharp social criticism and distinctive visual style.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIon de Sosa continues to prove himself one of the most daring and original voices in contemporary cinema, and we have long been admirers of his work,\u201d she adds. \u201cWith \u2018Balearic\u2019, he offers us a hypnotic and unsettling vision that captures with humor and uncanny precision the tensions of a sun-drenched paradise. A thought-provoking film with a strong ambition to connect both sensorially and emotionally, depicting the unique and singular setting of the Balearic Islands, where historically a diverse mix of people has given rise to very distinctive situations. We are honored to support this unique film and help bring it to the audience it deserves worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBalearic\u201d is produced by Umbracle Cine, Apellaniz y de Sosa and Jaibo Films in co-production with La Fabrica Nocturna Cin\u00e9ma. MoreThan Films is an international film sales agency based between Barcelona, Berlin and S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" International film sales agency MoreThan Films has picked up sales rights to Ion de Sosa\u2019s \u201cBalearic\u201d ahead of its world premiere as part of the Filmmakers of the Present section at the Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16). \u201cBalearic\u201d begins with a group of teenagers on a Mediterranean island who stumble upon a big house with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1951225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[341494,341493,341490,338999,341491,341489,327618,341492,33132,312645],"class_list":["post-1951224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-balearic","tag-christina-rosenvinge","tag-ion-de-sosa","tag-locarno-film-festival","tag-mediterranean-island","tag-morethan-films","tag-sosa","tag-techno-music","tag-variety","tag-world-premiere"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/MoreThan-Films-Acquires-Ion-de-Sosas-Locarno-Social-Thriller-\u2018Balearic.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1951224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1951225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1951224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1951224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1951224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}