Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #67. The Weeping Woman (La Llorona) – Jayro Bustamante

The Weeping Woman (La Llorona)

Before he’s even premiered his sophomore feature, Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante commences on his third feature, The Weeping Woman (La Llorona). Winning a coveted co-production grant at the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival and world rights were snapped up by Film Factory Ent., and is backed by French investor George Renard, serving as associate producer. Bustamante reunites with his Ixcanul actress Maria Mercedes Coroy, who will be playing the lead. Bustamante’s 2015 debut Ixcanul was the first Guatemalan film to compete in the festival and was awarded the Alfred Bauer award and subsequently selected as the country’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language category for Academy Award consideration.

Gist: Written by Bustamante and Lisandro Sanchez, Woman reconfigures the myth of La Llorona for a narrative beginning during the Civil War, an armed conflict in Guatemale which led to genocide and violent atrocities. Bustamante takes the original Medea-ish myth of a woman who drowns her children in response to her husband’s infidelity and turns her plight into a quest for justice in a vengeance narrative the director describes as similar to Tarantino’s revisionist Inglourious Basterds (2009).

Release Date/Prediction: Bustamante will begin filming The Weeping Woman in December 2018, with plans for releasing the first stills of the project at Berlin 2019. While Bustamante has yet to premiere Tremors, there’s a high probability he will be ready for Venice, where he would compete for the first time.