After flirting with musical comedy in Yucatán [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] (2018), Daniel Monzón (Palma de Mallorca, 1968) is now trying his hand at a film about small-time delinquents in the guise of Las leyes de la frontera [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film], a movie that he shot during the last few months of 2020 in various locations around Catalonia (Girona, Manresa, Costa de Garraf and Montblanc) and which is now in post-production. The feature is a big-screen adaptation of the novel Outlaws by Javier Cercas.

Set in 1978, the film marks the fourth joint effort between Monzón and Jorge Guerricaechevarría (El niño [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Daniel Monzón
fiche film], Cell 211 [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Daniel Monzón
fiche film]), and tells the action-packed, adrenaline-fuelled story of 17-year-old Nacho Cañas, an introverted student who lives in Girona and who is something of a misfit. When he meets El Zarco and Tere, young delinquents from the city’s Chinatown district, he gets caught up in a love triangle that leads him to indulge in an unrelenting onslaught of thievery, burglary and hold-ups that will change his life forever. The film is the chronicle of the summer during which Nacho experienced his first love and came of age, constantly crossing the boundary between two worlds, and overstepping the line that exists between right and wrong, between justice and injustice.

Marcos Ruiz (Smoke & Mirrors [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Alberto Rodríguez
fiche film]) plays Nacho, Begoña Vargas (32 Malasaña Street [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film]) steps into the role of Tere, and Chechu Salgado (Patria) breathes life into El Zarco in this fiction feature. The cast is rounded off by Carlos Oviedo as Guille, Xavier Martín as Gordo, Daniel Ibáñez (Piernas), Jorge Aparicio (Chino), Víctor Manuel Pajares (Drácula) and Cintia García (Lina), all of whom are members of El Zarco’s gang.

“Ever since I read the book Outlaws, my recollections of it have stayed with me for almost seven years, a period of time that has enabled me to mull over how to tackle the big-screen adaptation in different ways and from different standpoints, and it has finally materialised as the version that we’ve shot. The beautiful love triangle between Tere, Nacho and El Zarco – during the turbulent years of the transition to democracy, with all its potential for telling tales of adventure, unfurling an unadulterated thriller and romantically recreating that universe of small-time delinquency – whisked me away to a fascinating world, thanks to the distance afforded by the present day. Now the moment has come to bring the journey to a conclusion so that the viewer can come along for the ride and live through it with the same degree of intensity that we experienced it with,” explained Monzón, who is fascinated by titles in this particular cinematic genre, such as Deprisa, deprisa by Carlos Saura.

Las leyes de la frontera is being produced by Ikiru Films and La Terraza Films, with the involvement of Atresmedia Cine, Buendía Estudios and Las leyes de la frontera AIE. Warner Bros. Pictures Spain will be in charge of its distribution.