Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2015: #31. Agusti Villaronga’s The King of Havana

The King of Havana

Director: Agusti Villaronga // Writer: Agusti Villaronga

Spanish director Agusti Villaronga is most infamously known for his delightfully perverse 1986 art-house shocker In a Glass Cage, which starred Gunter Meisner and Marisa Paredes, concerning a former Nazi doctor left paralyzed and confined within an iron lung after a suicide attempt. Circumstances allow him to insist that his wife hires a young boy to care for him rather than a nurse, and we learn that the good doctor is a pedophile that enjoys putting the fear of death into young men. Villaronga followed that up with 1987’s Moon Child, another strange and obscure film, starring Lisa Gerrard and featuring music from her famed group Dead Can Dance. On the art-house periphery generally due to queer themes and motifs, including with 2000’s The Sea, his last feature, 2010’s Black Bread, was ushered forth as the Best Foreign Language submission for Spain in 2011 (much to the chagrin of many who would have preferred Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In snag that opportunity). But even with that distinction, “Bread” failed to receive US distribution. But it’s a recent distinction that we hope affords his next feature, The King of Havana, a wider international berth. An adaptation of the novel by Pedro Juan Gutierrez, the Cuba set thriller revolves around a teenager that escapes from a correctional facility.

Cast: Not available.

Producer: Tusitala Theatrical Production’s Luisa Matienzo

U.S. Distributor: Rights available

Release Date: With his last two films premiering at the San Sebastian Film Festival, it’s doubtful where exactly Villaronga hopes to premiere. The cast has not been announced and filming was moved from this past fall to this winter after the decision to film in the Dominican Republic instead of Havana, Cuba. We’re hoping Villaronga presents in a festival that will command international attention, either Venice, or more likely, Toronto.

.