John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Directing Penélope Cruz in Venice competition title “L’immensità,” Italy’s Emanuele Crialese is teaming with Argentina’s Nicolás Gil Lavedra to produce “Rona,” the second feature by Emiliano Torres, writer-director of San Sebastian Special Jury Prize winner “The Winter.” Produced by Crialese’s Italy-based Now and Buenos Aires Gamán Cine, set up by Lavedra and Torres, “Rona” is being structured as a majority European production and will shoot mainly in English.
Lavedra, whose recent production credits include Paz Encina’s Rotterdam Tiger Award winner “Eami,” will oversee production. “Rona” is one of the highest-profile of 14 titles at this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, one of the Spanish festival’s centrepiece industry events.
Written by Torres and Marcelo Chaparro, the director’s habitual co-scribe, “Rona” returns to the Patagonia setting of Torres’’ feature debut “The Winter” (“El Invierno”) which also won cinematography at San Sebastian.
This time round, however, it’s for what Torres calls a ”family drama framed in an existential adventure.” In it, Rona, a married Norwegian women given up for dead after an accident in Patagonia, determines to make a fresh start, leaving her old life and family behind.
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