Dominican producer Cristian Mojica and filmmaker Yoel Morales will pull double duty at this year’s Locarno, where their SXSW Audience Award-winning film “Bionico’s Bachata” will screen in the Open Doors section and their next project, “The Baker,” will participate in the Match Me! forum.
Mojica and Morales produce through their label Mentes Fritas Film Production, which is currently in development on the project and has plans to shoot in late 2025.
The 1925-set film turns on Marco, who immigrates from the Dominican Republic to inherit his uncle’s bakery in Italy, unaware that he will face intense internal conflicts and rivalries with neighboring businesses of a century-long war. His ascension gets complicated with violent crimes and unexpected alliances as he strives to revive the bakery’s legacy.
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According to Morales,”‘ The Baker’ is a wild film about a Dominican baker who will have to face the horror of the streets in order to grow in business. This particular story will be like taking ‘Mean Streets,’ adding Rohrwacher’s beautiful poetry and cooking with urban Dominican music Dembow.”
Given the film’s setting, Mojica tells PvNew he’s most interested in finding an Italian production partner but is open to working with producers from other European countries as well.
Speaking with PvNew, Mojica explained, “I have always dreamed of filming in Italy, inspired by Italian neorealism and my family’s migration. “Il Panettiere” (The Baker) is an opportunity for an organic co-production between two countries with many similarities in their people.”
Morales and Mojica’s latest film, SXSW Audience Award winner “Bionico’s Bachata,” will screen twice at this year’s Locarno as part of the Open Doors: Focus on Latin America and the Caribbean sidebar. The film tells the story of Bionico, a hopeless romantic addicted to crack, who, along with Calvita, his drug partner, tries to find a job, a house, and a wedding ring to marry La Flaca, his fiancée.
Before he can do any of that, however, he must quit drugs and stay clean by the time his betrothed gets out of the rehabilitation center where she’s kicking her own habit.
