James Franco To Play Fidel Castro In ‘Alina Of Cuba’; Mía Maestro Additionally Set Reverse Ana Villafañe

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee and 2x Golden Globe winner James Franco will play Cuban chief Fidel Castro in Miguel Bardem’s Alina of Cuba with Imagen Award winner Mía Maestro set to play Natalia “Naty” Revuelta, the Cuban-born socialite he has a passionate love affair with.

They sign up for prior to now introduced actress Ana Villafañe who’s portraying Alina Fernandez aka Castro’s Daughter. The screenplay from Oscar-nominated scribe Jose Rivera (The Motorbike Diaries) and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz, follows the true-life tale of Cuban exile grew to become social recommend, Fernandez, whose delivery was once the results of the tryst between Revuelta and Castro. Revuelta sacrificed her and her doctor husband’s non-public assets and budget to assist fund the beginning of the communist revolution. Fernandez discovered that she was once Fidel Castro’s daughter on the age of 10 when after years of secret visits to her house, her mom in any case printed that “El Comandante” was once her organic father. Alina grew to grow to be one in all Castro’s maximum outspoken critics, arrested on a couple of instance for seeking to depart, and was once categorised as a dissident forbidden to shuttle out of doors of Cuba. In the long run, she defected to Spain in 1993, an tournament that drew headlines from each primary information community all over the world, prior to she made Miami her everlasting house.

Rounding out the supporting solid are Alanna de l. a. Rosa, Maria Cecilia Botero (Encanto), Harding Junior, and Cuban-born actors Sian Chiong and Rafael Ernesto Hernandez.

The film is being shot completely on location in and round Cartagena and Bogota, with Colombia’s colonial Spanish structure and design taking part in for Castro-era Havana, Cuba. Cameras roll on Aug. 15.

John Martinez O’Felan, the undertaking’s lead inventive manufacturer of Austin-based Mankind Leisure, says, “Because the inception of the movie, our center of attention has been to provide an inventive piece of recent Hispanic historical past, with the imaginative and prescient for the undertaking as being actually inclusive thru uniting actors and creatives from each intergenerational and up to date Latin roots from the U.S, Latin The usa, and the sector. That mentioned, casting Ana and Mia had been no-brainers as a result of, but even so the trajectory in their previous paintings, one represents fashionable Cuban-The usa and the opposite Argentina. After gazing Ana’s reel and auditioning her, it was glaring she was once ideally fitted and had an ideal voice to hold the fabric, and Mia’s paintings previously with Jose spoke for itself and screamed creator/actress reunion.”

O’Felan provides, “Discovering and convincing James Franco to play Castro, was once a a laugh and difficult procedure and has been the collaborative paintings of the universe, as a result of our director’s authentic order was once to seek out an actor who holds an in depth bodily resemblance to the true Castro to construct from, in conjunction with discovering any individual Alina Fernandez would strongly endorse. To get there on one of these difficult glance to solid, we used Fidel Castro’s historic Galician heraldry as our focal compass, after which combed thru all of the ranks of actors with Latin roots in Hollywood to seek out any individual who has a identical facial construction. In executing an in depth seek into our hopefuls during the eye of Spanish and Portuguese family tree which the Galicians held, we discovered that James, by way of a long way, had the nearest facial likeness of our Business’s main actors, that means that the focal point can be to construct out his personality accessory and we’d have a surprising on-screen fit to intrigue audiences and convey the tale to lifestyles with true visible integrity. Altogether, running with one of these supportive and thrilling solid has been a real blessing to our crew and undertaking.”

As a part of the movie’s media package deal, O’Felan additionally introduced the absolutely financed better half documentary Revolution’s Daughter, which is being filmed on-location along Alina of Cuba with Emmy and Peabody Award-winning director Thaddeus D. Matula on the helm. Along with incorporating a behind-the-scenes have a look at Alina of Cuba, Revolution’s Daughter will discover the historic and fashionable have a look at Cuban historical past and Alina Fernandez. The documentary will likely be bought as a part of the full characteristic movie package deal.

Franco gained a Highest Actor Oscar nomination for 127 Hours in 2011. His portrayal of absurdist filmmaker and cult indie superstar Tommy Wiseau in The Crisis Artist earned him a Golden Globe win for Highest Actor – Comedy or Musical, Highest Actor in a Comedy on the Critics Selection Awards, and a SAG Nomination for Highest Actor. His characteristic credit come with the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Guy trilogy, Spring Breakers, Milk, Consume Pray Love, Upward push of the Planet of the Apes, The Pineapple Categorical, and This Is the Finish amongst a number of different titles. He was once the EP and superstar of the HBO sequence The Deuce, and he counts a large number of characteristic directing credit together with The Crisis Artist, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Demise, The Lengthy House amongst others. Franco additionally gained a Golden Globe in 2002 for his portrayal of James Dean within the TV film of the similar title within the Highest Actor Miniseries/Film class. The actor, who’s of Latin-Portuguese heritage, gained the enhance to play Castro by way of the Cuban chief’s personal daughter, who’s serving the manufacturing at the set as an inventive and biographical marketing consultant.  Franco is represented by way of Nameless Content material and UTA.

Maestro not too long ago wrapped the Apple+ anthology sequence Extrapolations, starring reverse Edward Norton, in addition to the lead in Domenico De Feudis’ Italian characteristic Il Legame (aka The Binding) for Netflix, produced by way of Academy Award winner Paolo Sorrentino. Maestro not too long ago starred within the acclaimed Sundance Movie Pageant premiere The Cow That Sang Into The Long term. She is understood for her roles in Carlos Saura’s Oscar-nominated characteristic Tango, Walter Salles’ The Motorbike Diaries, Julie Taymor’s Frida, in addition to her fresh function in FX’s hit sequence Mayans M.C. She is repped by way of Paradigm and Luber Roklin Leisure.

Closing date prior to now reported that Villafañe was once solid as Fernandez. She is easiest recognized for her breakout function within the Broadway musical On Your Ft, during which she portrayed Cuban pop icon, Gloria Estefan. She later starred as Nina Rosario within the Kennedy Middle’s 2018 manufacturing of Within the Heights. 

The manufacturers of Alina of Cuba are Austin-based Mankind Leisure’s O’Felan and Joe Lamy, in conjunction with Academy Award-nominee Celine Rattray (The Youngsters Are Alright) and BAFTA-nominated Trudie Styler (Nonetheless Alice, Lock, Inventory, and Two Smoking Barrels and Moon.) for Maven Display screen Media. Further manufacturers come with husband and spouse crew Allen Gilmer and Rikki Speeding, founders of Austin-based Redbud Studios. Emmy-winner Javier Gonzalez is government generating with Bogota-based manufacturing products and services corporate Jaguar Chew and Colombian EPs Juan Pablo Solano and Simon Beltran. EPs additionally come with Luis Mandoki and Thaddeus D. Matula.

UTA is dealing with North American gross sales at the movie.