Paz Vega to Direct ‘Ana No,’ Sold by Film Factory (EXCLUSIVE)

Best known in Hollywood for playing opposite Adam Sandler in “Spanglish,” Spanish actor Paz Vega is set to direct “Ana No,” a feature film starring Angela Molina (“That Obscure Object of Desire”) and sold at this year’s Cannes Festival by Film Factory Entertainment. 

“Ana No” marks Vega’s second movie as a director after the well-received “Rita,” which world premiered in 2024 at Locarno’s Piazza Grande. 

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Set in late’60s Spain, “Ana No” turns on widow Ana, 75, who senses she has little time to live. Closing her home for ever in a tiny village in Almería, southern Spain, she sets off on an odyssey to see her only son who survived the Spanish Civil War – jailed for the last 30 years in Northern Spain. The journey proves a belated act of self-discovery.

Ana’s odyssey becomes an “intimate heart-rending epic which will move spectators deeply with its realism and rawness,” said Vega, who will present Ana no” at Cannes on May 17. 

“Her journey towards death will also be a portrait of a a court wounded by a war between brothers, and of a generation of women silenced and forgotten,” Vega added. The film will be a cinema of atmosphere, suggesting rather than explaining, of a strange beauty.” 

Based on a novel by Goncourt Prize finalist Agustín Gómez Arcos, “Ana no” will go into production this fall. 

“This moving adaptation is a powerful testimony of resistance and memory,” said Film Factory head Vicente Canales. “Driven by Paz Vega’s masterful direction and an extraordinary performance by Ángela Molina, the film promises an exceptional experience. 

“Ana no” is produced by Spain’s Aralan Films (“Saturn Return”), a top producer in Andalusia which backed “Rita,” and Madrid-based Blacklight Films (“Aire”) along with Italy’s Ombre Rosse Film Production (“Il sogno dei pastori). 

BTeam Pictures, which released “Sirāt” and Sundays,” will handle distribution in Spain. 

Spain’s Marta Velasco and Paul Mateos Berdejo and Italy’s Andrea Di Blassio and. Luca Cabriolu serve as producers, Sandra Rodriguez as executive producer.  

Scoring Vega a Spanish Academy Goya Award nomination for best new director, “Rita” was described as a “subtly affecting directing debut” by U.K. newspaper The Guardian. As an actor Vega scored a best new actress Goya Award for her performance Julio Medem’s “Sex and Lucía.”