Banderas says financial crisis hurting indie film-makers

Hollywood actor and director Antonio Banderas said Saturday the financial crisis had dealt a heavy blow to independent film-makers.

"The crisis has taken us by surprise and it is stabbing us in the back," said the Spaniard, who starred in hit films including Desperado and Evita.

"It is very difficult to get a penny from a bank now, we are in a difficult situation," he added, speaking at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, where he was presenting the first film he has directed, "El Camino de los Ingleses" ("Summer Rain").

Banderas, 49, who started his career under Spanish director Pedro Almodovar before conquering Hollywood, has returned to his roots by founding a production company in his hometown of Malaga, Spain.

He said he was also working on a film with US director Woody Allen and was involved in efforts to raise funding for a script he had written.

"I wrote a script about the last king of the Arabs in the ninth century", he said, adding the film was a representation of the modern relationship between Arab countries and the rest of the world.

Banderas is also set to return to theatre in the coming months, with a new production of "Zorba the Greek."

"I want to go back to theatre because it is my main source, I'm more a theatre actor than a film actor," he said.

He said in Hollywood "they put a label on you: you are this or that, you are a "Latin Lover", they all have drawers in which they put you."

Banderas received the President's Prize at the film festival, held in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary, for his contribution to cinema.