31/07/2007

Woody Allen’s presence in Barcelona (see news) may have recently made a splash among the local media, but he is not the only established US filmmaker to have chosen to work in Spain this summer.

While Allen chose to shoot in Catalonia and Oviedo, the regions of Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid and Andalusia will for the next nine weeks host the production of the highly anticipated Che Guevara biopic, directed by Steven Soderbergh (The Good German).

Although there is only one shoot scheduled, Che's biography will be split into two features. The first, El Argentino, focuses on the role of the former Argentinean doctor in the Cuban revolution, whereas the second, Guerrilla, follows his journey to New York in 1964, where he held an impassioned speech about US foreign policy at the United Nations headquarters.

With a budget of over €50m, the two projects are backed by Spain's Morena Films and Telecinco Cinema – the film arm, previously known as Estudios Picasso Fábrica de Ficción, of private broadcaster Telecinco, which says it changed the name to consolidate its film identity under a new brand, following the international recognition of some of its latest projects, particularly local box-ffice hit Alatriste [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and the Oscar-winning Pan's Labyrinth [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

Following in the footsteps of Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, who played Che in Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Puerto-Rico-born Benicio del Toro will now take on the role of the infamous revolutionary. The cast also includes Catalina Sandino and Julia Ormond alongside Spanish actors Óscar Jaenada (see interview), Eduard Fernández and Jordi Mollá.