Paula Markovitch, Fernando Eimbcke’s right arm and co-writer on Duck Season and Lake Tahoe is looking to make her feature film directorial debut with a narrative that takes place during a volatile period in Argentina’s history. In the tradition of Eimbcke’s films, this will be a low-budget production with backing from Mexico’s Cacao Films, Argentina’s Magma Cine and France’s Mille et Une Productions.
El premio is a semi-autobiographical tale set in the 1970s under Argentina’s military Junta. It turns on a young girl, the daughter of political dissidents, who grows up in a seaside village. Film’s climax turns on her primary school competition for the best essay on the army. Her family is endangered when the little girl writes what she hears her mother say at home. Argentina’s ugly Junta period saw illegal arrests, torture, killings of thousands of people, primarily trade-unionists, students and activists – you have to feel for Markovitch if she was indeed that girl.
Variety reports that shooting begins next year in San Clemente del Tuyu, the Argentine village where Markovitch grew up, and that the child lead will be a non-actor. Markovitch previously directed a pair of shorts, including Perriférico with Diego Luna.
