Film Factory Joins Ricardo Darin, Santiago Mitre, K & S on ‘La Cordillera’ (EXCLUSIVE)
CANNES — Ricardo Darin, one of Latin America’s biggest marquee draws, will play the president of Argentina in “La Cordillera,” directed by Cannes 2015 Critics’ Week winner Santiago Mitre (“Paulina”), and uniting “Paulina’s” producers with much of the production-sales team behind “Wild Tales” and “The Clan,” two Argentine B.O. milestones.
Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Ent. will represent world sales rights. “La Cordillera” won the Prix Arte International for the best feature film project at the Cannes Festival’s Cinefondation L’Atelier, Cannes’ development-co-production workshop, on Thursday, May 19, as its co-pro structures fell into final place over the festival.
Described by producer Matias Mosteirin as a big step up in scale for Mitre, “La Cordillera” is set at a three-day leaders summit in the Andes attended by Hernan Blanco, Argentina’s head of state. As regional alliances and strategies are forged, speeches, made and political intrigues, pacts and deals advanced behind closed doors, Hernán Blanco struggle with personal drama. Ultimately, he will have to choose between his closest family and political career.
“La Cordillera” is scheduled to go into production second semester 2016, shooting on locations in Argentina and Chile.
K&S Films has boarded “La Cordillera” as its lead producer. It will produce with La Unión de los Ríos, Mitre’s own label, Telefe/Telefonica Studios, and France’s Maneki Films and Spain’s Mod Producciones.
“Paulina” producers Agustina Llambi Campbell, Fernando Brom, and Mitre himself at La Unión de los Ríos, Didar Domehri Maneki Films and Axel Kuschevtazky at Telefe-Telefonica Studios developed the project. K&S, Telefe-Telefonica Studios and Film Factory all teamed on “Wild Tales” and “The Clan.” Madrid and Barcelona-based Mod, headed by Fernando Bovaira and Simon de Santiago, have produced Alejandro Amenabar’s recent films as well as Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Biutiful.”
Dolores Fonzi will also be feature in “La Cordillera,” after her internationally acclaimed performance in “Paulina.”
Exploring, as in Mitre’s debut “The Student”, the disfunctionality of contemporary politics through its potential personal cost to its practitioners, “La cordillera” is Mitre’s follow-up to “Paulina” which obtained the Nespresso Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI award at La Semaine de la Critique, where Mitre serves this year as a jury.
The star of Juan Jose Campanella’s Oscar-winning “The Secret of Their Eyes,” which earned $6.4 million for Sony Pictures Classics in 2010 and “Euros6.3 million ($8.25 million) for indie distrib Alta Films in Spain in 2009, Darin also toplined Damian Szifron’s Cannes hit “Wild Tales,” another Sony Pictures Classics U.S. pickup which grossed €38.9 million ($44.1 million) worldwide.
He is one of the only actors in Latin America who can help spark pre-sales and open a film theatrically abroad. Following a strategy developed with “Wild Tales” but seen this year at Cannes with “Neruda,” the robust international co-production structure of “La Cordillera” multiplies the producer expertise on “La Cordillera,” and gives it the budgetary muscle to allow the director to make the film he wants with the VFX, crowd scenes and stars it requires. The presence of TV network Telefe among producers guarantees “La Cordillera” a muscular marketing platform in its native Argentina.
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