Brazil’s Maeve Jinkings, renowned for her pivotal role in Walter Salles’ Oscar-winning “I’m Still Here,” leads the cast in the upcoming prison convent escape drama “Cabildo 71,” which is selected to participate in Ventana Sur’s Proyecta Co-Production Forum.
Jinkings is also best known for her roles in “The Secret Agent” director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s lauded dramas “Neighboring Sounds” and “Aquarius.”
Una Presencia (Argentina) and Vitrine Filmes (Brazil/Spain) have come on board as co-producers of the project, which is backed by Argentina’s INCAA minority fund and the Ancine–ACAU bilateral minority fund. They join lead producer Monarca Films of Uruguay and co-producer Boulevard Filmes, Brazil.
Written and directed by Victoria “Pitoka” Pena, whose debut feature, “Delia”, won the Silver Biznaga for Best Director at the Málaga Film Festival, “Cabildo 71” is based on real-life events about the women imprisoned in Cabildo — a prison-convent run by the nuns of the Good Shepherd, which included Lucía Topolansky, who later became the VP of Uruguay and wife of former President José “Pepe” Mujica, her twin sister Elia Topolansky and other women who became prominent figures in Uruguay’s political and social life.
Story follows La Parda who joins forces with 12 political prisoners to form a women’s choir, using it as a cover to escape from the Cabildo prison-convent. During Mass on March 8, 1970, they rush down the chapel aisle and escape right under the noses of the nuns guarding them.
A year later, La Parda is captured again. This time, there are no nuns—only police and a growing number of prisoners, including her sister, Lucía. The two barely speak, but La Parda senses that Lucía is hiding something.
Behind the prison walls, a daring plan is taking shape: the biggest women’s prison escape in history.
“I am interested in telling this story from an intimate and personal point of view, giving this dimension precedence over the heroic narrative of the feat. Without diminishing what was achieved — quite the opposite — I want to delve into the issues that shaped the prisoners’ lives within the intimacy of the prison: the differences among them that give substance to their experience, in order to explore identity, betrayal and the need to find one’s own sense of justice,” said Pena.
Said Monarca Film’s Eugenia Olascuaga: “We want to portray the female characters within their variety of social class and the kind of life they led, not under the “guerrilla women” stereotype that the popular imagination tends to default to.”
“The eight Uruguayan actresses who will play the Tupamaras are confirmed — it was very important for us that they all be Uruguayan, as a political and artistic choice.”
She added that the actresses playing the Topolansky sisters are Graciela Ingold and Carolina Genoni while the rest of the cast are Camila Parard, Renata Denevi, Luche Bolten and Matilde Colacce. Jinkings plays one of the nuns in the convent-prison.
Principal photography is slated for Sept. to Nov. next year.
Ventana Sur takes place in Montevideo, Uruguay over Nov. 30 – Dec. 4.