Santiago Zannou, a Spanish filmmaker of African descent (his father is from Benin, the West African country), will see his second feature film, titled Scorpion In Love, picked up by Wild Bunch, who plans to shop the film at the upcoming American Film Market at the end of this month.

Scorpion in Love is an adaptation of Carlos Bardem’s bestselling novel about a former neo-Nazi gang member who turns to boxing in an effort to reinvent himself after doing time in prison. However, when he starts seeing a mixed-race girl at the gym, he falls even further foul of neo-Nazi chief Solis, who used to be his mentor.

Carlos Bardem (an actor, and brother to Javier Bardem) will play a former boxing champ who befriends the young neo-Nazi man; Alex Gonzalez plays the neo-Nazi and Javier Bardem plays the neo-Nazi chief Solis.

Interesting…

The film is produced by Alvaro Longoria for Morena Films (he produced Steven Soderbergh's Che).

Director Zannou's debut feature, The One-handed Trick, was a critical and commercial success in Spain; the film, which is a tale of immigrants living in a housing project who decide to set up a rap studio, picked up three Goya awards last year – the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards.

Clearly he's one to watch, even though this is the first time I'm hearing about him. 

I'll go dig up The One-Handed Trick. It's not on Netflix; but if you have one of those region-free DVD players, you can buy a region 2 copy on Amazon.com.

Here's the trailer for last year's The One-Handed Trick, while we wait to get a look at his second feature, Scorpion In Love.