10/02/2016 - The director of No News from God and Alatriste is tackling the conquest of America in his new project; he is back behind the camera after a seven-year hiatus

At the end of February, the shoot will kick off for Oro (lit. “Gold”), the eagerly awaited fifth film by Agustín Díaz Yanes, a demanding and meticulous filmmaker who gets behind the camera every five years or so – a quick glance at his scant filmography confirms this: it comprises Nobody Will Speak of Us When We’re Dead (1995), No News from God (2001), Alatriste [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2006) and Just Walking [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2008). Armed with the same ambition and rigour that he demonstrated with his accomplished 2006 adaptation of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s novel, starring Viggo Mortensen and Ariadna Gil, he is back to take on another text by the same author: Oro is based on an unpublished story written by the former reporter.

The cast is still being finalised, but there are already some impressive names attached, such as Raúl Arévalo, Óscar Jaenada, Bárbara Lennie, Juan Echanove and Anna Castillo (who we will come across in The Olive Tree [+see also:
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interview: Icíar Bollaín
film profile] by Icíar Bollaín, set to be released on 6 May). With production by Atresmedia Cine, Sony Pictures España and Apaches (also the producer of Toro [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kike Maíllo
film profile] by Kike Maíllo, which will open the upcoming Málaga Spanish Film Festival), Oro is bound to be one of the movies that will set tongues wagging a great deal over the next few months.

The plot, based on the expeditions of Lope de Aguirre and Vasco Núñez de Balboa, but narrated in an epic western genre, places its main characters on the unexplored New Continent in the 16^th century. It was here that the Spaniards began an era that was as glorious as it was dark, dangerous and violent, discovering a hostile world and conquering it at the same time, all the while harbouring the materialistic and greedy ambition that the title of the film suggests: they were in search of a city made of gold, the El Dorado that Carlos Saura showed us in 1988.

Oro boasts an €8 million budget, and its shoot will span more than two months, taking place in Madrid, the Canary Islands and the rainforest in Panama.

(Translated from Spanish)