Suspense Thriller ‘Barren Land,’ From ‘Money Heist’ Director Albert Pintó, Snapped Up by Film Factory (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Barren Land,” from Spain’s Albert Pintó, director of Netflix global blockbusters “Money Heist,” “Berlin” and “Nowhere,” have been snapped up by Spain’s Film Factory Entertainment.

From an original idea by producer Alvaro Ariza, “Barren Land” (“Tierra de Nadie”) is penned by Fernando Navarro, one of Spain’s go-to screenwriters whose credits include Netflix hits “Below Zero” and “Veronica.” Film Factory will launch world sales on “Barren Land,” as it builds a powerful slate of upscale commercial packages.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Iberia will release the film in Spain next year. Now with principal photography underway in Cadiz, southern Spain, the suspense thriller captures the devastation of friendships, lives and the whole province by a rampant drug trade, action also expanding to the Straits of Gibraltar. “An ode to friendship, focusing on three characters whose paths diverge due to the longstanding situation in the Southern part of Spain,” “Barren Land” turns on Mateo “El Gallego,” described as heroic, despite himself, Civil Guard; Juan “el Antxale,” a fisherman forced into the drug trade by bad luck and unemployment, and Benito “el Yeye,” a intelligent bailiff resigned at a job which places him between a rock and a hard place of law enforcers and criminals. “All three [are] trapped between the abandonment of the institutions, the violent and unstoppable rise of the narco trade in the province and the dangerous increase of social discontent.

Three friends trapped in a powder keg that will test their friendship,” the synopsis runs. The film stars Luis Zahera, haunting as the main villain in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” Karra Elejalde, who played Unamuno in.