Furlined has signed three-headed directing team MANSON to its U.S. roster. MANSON’s three heads belong to Gerardo del Hierro, Pau López, and Tomás Peña, all currently living in Barcelona.
Furlined president Diane McArter described their work as, “uniquely raucous, audacious, elastic, playful, sophisticated, and surreal. With roots in design and animation, what’s so exhilarating is how freely MANSON move across filmmaking genres, deploying mixed- and cross-media juxtapositions to build eye-tickling visual stories.”
To be clear, MANSON is not a collective. Peña explained, “The word collective has a sort of hippie connotation and while we love that aesthetic (and the psychedelics), ‘firm’ more accurately describes the way we work. Our work is controlled improvisation. We plan everything meticulously, so we have room to discover things on set.”
Collaborating for nearly two decades, with a background in graphic design and animation, the members of MANSON have drawn on a mix of formal training and DIY to collaborate with clients across the globe on commercials and music videos. Their international brand collaborations include Adidas, Nike, Pirelli, and Instagram, and artists such as Katy Perry, The Prodigy, and Rosalía.
In January 2020, MANSON formed Bliss to expand their visual bag of tricks for any given project, leveraging their animation, VFX, photography, and design chops. López, del Hierro and Peña described Bliss as “another sandbox to play in, for us to evolve…to push our own boundaries. We don’t want to be safe.”
MANSON’s Amazon Prime series Romancero, which premieres worldwide on November 3, mashes up Spanish verité, American thrillers and Japanese anime into an entirely new form. It was created in collaboration with screenwriter Fernando Navarro.
In a joint statement, MANSON shared, “We chose Furlined for its savoir-faire and its charming people. At Furlined, visual poetry collides with the wild advertising game, executed at its best, with the global vision and passion for details to fulfill our biggest ambitions. And it feels like home already.”
Internationally MANSON is represented by Blur in Spain, Diplomat in France, Rekorder in Germany, Immigrant in Denmark and Brazil, and Kidzfrmnowhere in Japan.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More