Arantxa Echevarría's Undercover in production
- Carolina Yuste and Luis Tosar star in the tense story based on true events of the police who joined the ranks of the terrorist group ETA in order to dismantle it
The filming of Undercover [+see also:
trailer
film profile] began on 5 February directed by Arantxa Echevarría, director, screenwriter and film and television producer who in 2018 became the first Spanish filmmaker to be selected for the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes with her debut feature Carmen & Lola [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Arantxa Echevarría
film profile], for which she also received the Goya Award for Best New Director. The busy filmmaker has gone on to direct Chinas [+see also:
trailer
film profile], screened at the RTVE Gala at the San Sebastian Film Festival last September, and the commercial comedies La familia perfecta [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Políticamente incorrectos (released in Spain on 23 February).
The film stars Carolina Yuste, Goya for Best Supporting Actress in a Supporting Role for Carmen & Lola and recent nominee for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Jokes & Cigarettes, and Luis Tosar, winner of three Goyas in his career (for Mondays in The Sun [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Take my Eyes [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Cell 211 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniel Monzón
film profile]) and who we recently saw in All the Names of God [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and El correo.
The film tells the story of Aranzazu Berradre (played by Yuste), the pseudonym used by a national policewoman who infiltrated the terrorist group ETA. At only 20 years of age, she was the only member of the police force who lived with these murderers and succeeded in dismantling the Donosti command. For eight years she had to gain the trust of its members under the tension of being discovered and also of the person in charge of the operation within the national police (played by Tosar).
Producer María Luisa Gutiérrez, of Bowfinger International Pictures, says that "it was usual for people from different disciplines to get together at my house on Fridays, nothing to do with cinema, and when I heard Aranzazu's story I thought it had to be told. The admiration with which a fellow policeman spoke of her, the terror I saw in his eyes when he was struggling to make us understand what this woman must have lived through, what she’d left behind... I was so curious to get to know her and try to understand her. Why would anyone give up their life and risk it for the common good? When I went to the market to pitch the project, at every table I felt the listener’s curiosity. But it was only Mercedes Gamero and Pablo Nogueroles who, without hesitation and from the outset, also wanted to set it in motion."
Undercover is produced by Bowfinger International Pictures, Beta Fiction Spain, Esto también pasará and Infiltrada LP AIE, in association with Film Factory Entertainment, with the participation of Atresmedia Cine, EITB, Movistar Plus+ and Crea SGR, plus the support of the ICAA. The film will be distributed in Spain by Beta Fiction Spain and exported by Film Factory.
(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)
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