Disney+ has picked up Latin American rights to Diego Yaker’s Argentine-Spanish revenge thriller “Una jirafa en el balcón” and is planning a theatrical release in Argentina and Uruguay.
Barcelona-based indie studio Filmax is handling Spanish distribution and international sales rights on the film.
Hitting the final straits of its shoot, “Una jirafa en el balcón” is filming in Barcelona over Nov. 14-17, after previously lensing in Argentina’s La Rioja region and Buenos Aires.
The film toplines Argentine actress Andrea Frigerio (“Rojo,” “The Distinguished Citizen”) and Spain’s Diana Gómez (“Money Heist,” “Valeria”), Artur Busquets (“Saben aquel,” “La Mesías”) and “Mudar la piel’s” Mingo Rafols.
Frigerio plays Lidia Muñoz (64), a retired woman living in Barcelona since 1978 who was forced into exile from Argentina after the military dictatorship ruling the country those years tried to kidnap her and make her disappear. Pregnant with her only daughter Valeria (Gómez), who is now 36, she managed to flee to Spain.
40 years later, at her home in Barcelona, Lidia receives a summons from the Argentine Department of Justice to testify in the trial for the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of Óscar Medina, then her partner and Valeria’s father.
Valeria doesn’t understand her mother’s being reluctant to travel to Argentina. She thinks it’s time to reclaim the figure of her missing father.
At the trial, Lidia discovers she and her partner Óscar were handed over by best friend Jorge Ramos, a collaborator of the repressive military government.
Lidia feels that she must take revenge, believing that, in this way, she will be able to heal the wounds from the past that still torment her and help her to confront her other self, hidden since 1978 behind the mask of a kindly Argentine woman: A militant of a left-wing guerrilla group, which fought against the dictatorship.
The Spanish-Argentine co-production teams tax vehicle Chavalas La Película and productionoutfit Balance Media Entertainment from Spain, with Argentina’s Buen Destino and Bourke Films.
Producers are Spain’s Miguel Torrente and Argentina’s Nicolás Touzzo, Patricio di Salvio and Rodolfo Lamboglia. Actress Frigerio and writer-director Yaker have associate producers credits, while Marta Figueras executive produces.
“Una jirafa en el balcón’s” is dubbed as the “B Side” of Santiago Mitre’s multi-awarded Oscar-nominated film “Argentina, 1985,” in which a team of lawyers prosecutes the heads of Argentina’s military dictatorship.
“What happens with a person who did not disappear, with a person who was able to go into exile and escape, or a person who was kidnapped, disappeared and then returned or, rather, allowed to return? How does a person face their life based on that experience?,” asked Barcelona-based, Argentine filmmaker Yaker (“Como mariposas en la luz,” “Pecados.”)
He continued: “How do we articulate the guilt, both of the person who went into exile and feels that they fled, and of the person who collaborated and feels that they couldn’t do anything else?”
“This is the first film in international cinema to address this issue,” he added.
According to Yaker, “Lidia’s need to face her past offers an opportunity to think and ask ourselves these questions that have affected us not only in the countries participating in this project, but universally, wherever violence is a method to impose political, economic or social objectives.”
