Cande Lázaro’s ‘The Shepherdess,’ Resurrecting Famed Spanish Maqui Florenci Pla, Casts ‘Money Heist’s’ Alba Flores (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Alba Flores, Nairobi in “Money Heist,” and Spanish Academy Goya new actor nominees La Dani and Julio Hu Chen, are attached to star in Cande Lázaro’s “The Shepherdess,” a potential standout at this year’s Locarno Match Me!

co-production forum. Flores also starred as Saray Vargas in women’s penitentiary-set international breakout “Locked Up.” La Dani, a non-binary singer and now actor, won his 2024 Goya nomination for “Love & Revolution,” well received by critics; Spaniard Hu Chen’s nomination at the same Goya awards came for “Chinas,” where his role and performance bucked stock stereotypes of Chinese immigrants in Spain.

He was one of the first Spanish actors of Chinese descent to score an Academy nomination. This keynote of inclusivity runs through “The Shepherdess.” A fiction feature, it resurrects the figure of intersexual maqui Florenci Pla and establishes a dialog between him and Cande Lázaro, the film’s director, who in the film is undergoing his medical and administrative transition.

Selected for the 2024 edition of San Sebastian’s Ikusmira Berriak, one of Spain’s most prestigious development programs, “The Shepherdess” is also the first time in Spain that a production and directing team – producer Charli Bujosa Cortés at Spain’s Mansalva Films and director Lázaro – is made up of two non-binary trans people who come together to tell a story that starts from a real historical figure, Bujosa noted.