Madrid-born filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen has been working in both television and film for nearly two decades. He rose to prominence with 2018’s El Reino (The Realm), a political thriller that swept several Goya Awards (Spain’s Oscars) including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. He followed that success with Madre (Mother), which premiered in the Orizzonti section at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. Most recently, he delivered the gripping The Beasts (As Bestas), selected for the Cannes Premiere section in 2022 – it was so well-received in France that it went on to win the César Award for Best Foreign Film. Now, with his seventh feature, Sorogoyen appears poised to return to the tense, emotionally charged human dynamics, something that works outside of his usual more political thrillers. Here is Everything We Know So Far … about Rodrigo Sorogoyen‘s The Beloved.
The first mentions of the project came when it was looking for financing back in early 2024, and it is Javier Bardem himself that let the cat out of the bag revealing that he had boarded the project. Production began in February 2025 with the production takin place briefly in Madrid and mostly on the Canary Island of Fuerteventura on what is a Spain production backed by Euro coin and French funds.
Once again co-written alongside Isabel Peña, this follows an acclaimed director (Javier Bardem) and his middling actress daughter (Victoria Luengo), who are forced to reunite on a film set after years of estrangement. The layers deepen as their film, titled Desierto, is a period piece set in the 1930s Western Sahara, which they are shooting on location in Fuerteventura. Here is a glimpse.
Javier Bardem and Victoria Luengo are surrounded by Marina Foïs (who was in The Beasts) Raúl Arévalo, Mourad Ouani, Raúl Prieto, Melina Matthews, Núria Prims, Pablo Gómez Pando, and Malena Villa.
Longtime collaborator cinematographer Álex de Pablo and editor Alberto del Campo return to the fold.
After a ten week shoot, post production will hover around the one year mark on The Beloved so this will likely be submitted to the major competition section in Berlin, with the team looking towards a Cannes run at the Palme d’Or with what could be a Donostia-San Sebastian Film Festival local showcase. Goodfellas are the international sales folks.
