Deep Com Roots Sells Strongly ‘Summer Days,’ Rolls on Amor de Dios

Flexing its muscles as one of the biggest new kids on its film industry block, Spain’s ISII Group has gone into production on “Amor de Dios” headlined by “The Orphanage” star Belén Rueda and produced by ISII banner label Inefable Productions. 

The news comes as ISII Group distribution-sales house Deep Com Roots has sold “Summer Days” to half the world’s major markets and cameras have rolled on “La Cathédrale,” Inefable’s first fully English production starring “One Piece” icon Taz Skylar.

As a mark of its step-up in scale, ISII Group now has four films in production in 2026 and another quartet released or awaiting release, including Spanish Western “Trinidad,” an ambitious Wild West-set Spanish family saga led by “Your Fault’s” Gabriela Andrada, Paz Vega and Karla Sofía Gascón. All ISII Group titles are sold and distributed in Spain by Deep Com Roots, a strategic partner. 

‘Summer Days’ Closes Half the World

“Summer Days” weighs in as a sun-drenched erotic drama with a thriller edge. 

Headed by Maggie Civantos, star of “Locked Up,” “Money Heist” creator Alex Pina’s first international breakout, “Summer Days” has closed Latin America, bought by Brazil’s Sofa Digital, plus Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Busch Media Group) and CIS (Kinologistika). Tokyo’s Aya Pro has licensed Japan, Mumbai’s PictureWorks India, distributor of Anatomy of a Fall and Flow, has acquired rights to India, and Scene & Sound those to South Korea. 

“Summer Days” (“Días de agosto”) begins with college students Juan (Pau Simón, “Nudes”) and Gabriela (Berta Galo, “La moderna”) escaping to his family beachside chalet for an idyllic summer. 

The film is described as a romantic drama. It acquires almost immediately, however, an erotic charge, in dialog and the arrival of Juan’s father Fernando (Roberto Álamo, “Riot Police”) with his much younger girlfriend Monica (Civantos). Juan and Monica’s feelings for each other build, mixing Juan’s resentment for his father leaving his mother and impossible-to-ignore physical attraction.  

“Deep Com Roots attended Cannes Market for the first time and was met with strong interest from the international market. Among our slate, Summer Days was one of the films that attracted the most attention from the buyers,” Emir Duzel, Deep Com Roots head of international sales, told Variety. “We believe its powerful story and the strong sense of tension made the film especially appealing. We are currently continuing negotiations for distribution deals for several more territories.”     

Early fruit of the ISII Group’s new talent support, “Summer Days” is based on a screenplay by David Sueiro, which was one of the seven fiction winners in the ISII Group’s first Break on Time ’59 national screenplay competition in 2024. It also marks a return to fiction of versatile director Chema del Prado, behind “IsiDisi,” a Spanish gross-out classic.

‘Amor de Dios,’ Led Belén Rueda, Goes Into Production        

Also the female lead in Alejandro Amenábar’s Academy Award winner “The Sea Inside” and star of upscale genre hits “Julia’s Eyes” and “The Body,” in “Amor de Dios,” Rueda plays Sara Lanes, a renowned dancer and choreographer now living in Paris. When flamenco school Amor de Dios, once rated the world’s best, announces its closure, Sara returns to Madrid with disciple Ángela hoping to save the place where her own career began. 

“At the School, Sara reencounters a past she has never been able to leave behind. That and her own physical decline turns her return into a profoundly personal journey where she has to decide what she is willing to sacrifice in order to preserve her legacy,” says the synopsis.

Inspired in its origins by an original idea by Spanish cinema great Carlos Saura, “Amor de Dios” is also produced by Inefable Productions

Key cast also takes in Asier Etxeandia, co-star of Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory,” and celebrated French dancer Soleila Chaou, Spanish National Ballet principal dancer Irene Tena and Tania Santana (“Love on a Tightrope”). 

Scheduled for release in 2027, “Amor de Dios” marks the awaited fiction feature debut of Paula Palacios, winner of the IDA Netflix 2022 Global Emerging Filmmaker Award and a double Goya best doc feature nominee for two stirring and affecting films, set against the context of African immigration to Europe: “Drowning Letters” (“Cartas Mojadas,” 2020) and “My Brother Ali,” (2024). 

“La Cathédrale,” Headlined by Will Keen and Taz Skylar

“A new push for ISII Group’s fiction division,” it has noted, “La Cathédrale,” a double redemption thriller, turns on Thomas (Keen), a renowned violinist, who struggles to rebuild his life after the murder of his teenage daughter. When he agrees to take part in a restorative justice process with the man convicted of her killing (Skylar), the discovery of a mysterious violin among her belongings sets him on what the synopsis calls “a relentless search for the truth.”

Beyond Slylar, “La Cathédrale” stars Keen, the distinguished British theatre actor and Private Secretary Michael Adeane in “The Crown,” Venice Horizons best actress Award winner Marta Nieto (“Mother”), Ronald Guttman, whose prolific and long career takes in “The Hunt for Red October,” “Lost” and “Mad Men”; and Catalan actor-pianist Peter Vives (“The Time in Between”).

The film stands out for its “narrative tension, a powerful soundtrack and an immersive atmosphere,” Deep Com Roots has said.

Now shooting in the Canary Islands, in Tenerife and Las Palmas, ““La Cathédrale” reflects director Eduardo Cubillo’s fascination with restorative justice. “Two people who seem irreconcilable – filled with hatred and countless grievances – can, through a simple conversation – which may or may not be difficult – end up feeling liberated in a way that has to be seen to be believed; it’s truly magical,” he has said. The film is written by Cubillo and scribe-helmer José Ortuño (“The Extraordinary Tale”).

Deep Com Roots’ Slate

“At ISII Group, we conceive each project not only from its creative ambition, but also the commercial career it can have inside and outside Spain,” said ISII Group President Silvia Carvalho. 

“So we have developed a structure which integrates development, financing, production, services, distribution and sales, with Deep Com Roots as the sales agent on all of our catalog,” she added. “‘Summer Days’ pre-sales and the interest generated by ‘La Cathédrale,’ ‘Amor de Dios’ and ‘Trinidad’ confirm that this model allows us to create value and market opportunities from the first stages of every film.”

“Trinidad,” directed by  Laura Alvea and José Ortuño, bows Nov. 2026.

Gleaning great reviews, beginning in 1969 when Spain was still under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, “Tal vez” charts the perhaps requited love of Canary Islands poet Natalia Sosa Ayala (“Hierro”) for trapeze artist Pinito del Oro (Adriana Ugarte, “Juileta”), star of New York’s Ringling Brothers. Bowed July 10, it is directed by Arima León, turning on their encounter and their correspondence afterwards.  

Winner of the 2025 Break on Time competition, “Desde Arriba,” a father-son relationship dramedy, is now in post-production. Martín Cuervo directs from a screenplay by Arturo Ruiz Serrano and José Manuel Carrasco.

A realist survival thriller starring Milena Smit (“Parallel Mothers”) and Irene Escolar (“Tell Me Who I Am”) “My Zone” shot in the Canary Islands of Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura from May. It marks the feature debut of best short fiction Goya winner Cristián Beteta (“Ángulo muerto”).  Directed by Violeta Salama (“Alegría”), “Auri,” starring Cristina Marcos (“Maravillas,” “Locked Up”), a comedy turning on a housewife’s later life revolution, bowed in April in Spain.