Spanish screen star Paz Vega has been tapped to topline “Death Has No Master,” from Venezuelan director Jorge Thielen Armand, which was selected to take part in the Venice Production Bridge’s Gap-Financing Market taking place from Aug. 30 – Sept. 1.
The film follows a Venezuelan woman, Carolina (Vega), who returns to the country after 20 years abroad, only to discover that her family’s cacao plantation has been occupied by its former workers, who are determined to remain at all costs. In the cat-and-mouse game that ensues, she unmasks a brutal side of herself as she tries to attain justice in a lawless land.
Producer Stefano Centini, of Rome-based Volos Films Italia, said this would be a “breakthrough” role for the Spanish superstar, who recently premiered her directorial debut, “Rita,” on the Locarno Film Festival’s Piazza Grande. Armand added: “We’re used to seeing Paz Vega as an icon of beauty and glamor, and this is a film where we’re going to see her down in the mud.”
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“Death Has No Master” is written and directed by Armand and produced by La Faena Films, Fait Divers Media, Volos Films Italia, Tres Cinematografía, Whisky, Su Dosis, Paloma Negra, Deal Productions, Mutokino and Japonica Films. Armand’s debut, “La Soledad,” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2016, while his sophomore feature, “La Fortaleza,” premiered in the Tiger Competition at Rotterdam in 2020.
Armand’s third feature taps into the emotional journey of a filmmaker who fled his country nearly two decades ago, and who has spent the years since “bouncing around, trying to get to somewhere that feels closer to Venezuela,” the director told Variety.
Now based in Madrid, he said he shared the sentiments of so many of his exiled countrymen who are “waiting to see if things are going to change, with the dream of going back one day.”
“This is my story, but also the story of another 8 million Venezuelans,” he said. “I feel like Carolina represents the fears and dreams of many people who left, who left things behind, who left land or family, friends, and have this fear of going back and not knowing what they will find.”
“Death Has No Master” takes place at a time of spiraling unrest in Venezuela, which has been leveled by a crippling economic crisis for more than a decade, forcing many to resort to desperate measures. The director said he was looking to make a film that explores moral gray areas, focused on “people who are human and people who make mistakes and people who do questionable things.”
“For me, the theme of this film is justice,” he explained. “It’s a film where the characters are left to take justice into their own hands,” leading them down a path whose violent consequences are “irreversible.” “This is, of course, happening in Venezuela. But I feel like this is a thing that is happening around the world, where justice is becoming more and more malleable.”
Centini, who spent 15 years in Taiwan before returning to set up an Italian arm of his production company two years ago, said the project came along at a perfect time as he begins to expand his focus into Europe and Latin America. The producer’s credits include Felipe Gálvez’s Chilean Western “The Settlers,” which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section last year, and Argentine director Eduardo Williams’ docu-drama “The Human Surge 3.”
“Death Has No Master” is currently set up as a six-country co-production between Venezuela, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain and Canada, the last through La Faena Films, a Toronto-based company co-founded in 2015 by Armand and Rodrigo Michelangeli.
“Venezuela, both for the politically charged themes, but also for the situation of the country, cannot be the main financing country of the film,” said Centini, who added that the producers are looking to close the last 20-25% of the budget, with plans to go into production in the first quarter of 2025.
While the filmmakers are exploring the possibility of shooting in Colombia, where Armand recently shot the short film “Pasta Negra” with “Death Has No Master” DoP Simone D’Arcangelo, they’re also “looking at other possibilities,” according to Centini.
The producer will be in Venice with a trio of films, including Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua’s Golden Lion contender “Stranger Eyes,” Horizons player “Wishing on a Star,” from Péter Kerekes, and Hayoun Kwon’s “Guardians of the Jade Mountain,” premiering in the festival’s VR competition.
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