Goya Best Actress Winner Laia Costa to Star in Isabel Coixet’s Romance Drama ‘Un Amor’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Fresh off her 2023 Goya best actress win for “Lullaby” on Saturday night,” Laia Costa (“Only You,” “Piercing,” “Victoria) is set to star in the passionate romance drama “Un Amor,” by multi-prized Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (“The Bookshop,” “The Secret Life of Words”).
Film Constellation, the London and now Paris-based production, finance & sales company, will introduce the new production to buyers at thus and next week’s Berlin European Film Market.
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Distributor of Berlin competition entry “20,000 Species if Bees” and La Maternal, a San Sebastian best leading performance winner for Carla Quílez, BTeam Pictures will handle the film’s release in Spain.
Written by Spanish novelist and short-story writer Laura Ferrero (“What Are You Going To Do With the Rest of Your Life,” “Empty Pools”) and Coixet, “Un Amor” is based on an admired novel by Sara Mesa. A fiction study of emotional dependence in which Mesa returns to the themes of power and subjugation which thread much of her work, “Un Amor” was selected by Spanish newspaper El Pais as Spain’s 2020 book of the year. It has been translated into 18 languages.
In the film, Natalia, 30, moves from the big city to a rustic derelict house in a hamlet, La Escapa, buried in the countryside. She aims to rebuild. Confronting the hostility of her landlord and the distrust of the local villagers, however, she gives in to an unsettling sexual proposal from her neighbor, Andreas. “From this strange and conflicting encounter sparks a devouring and obsessive passion that will consume Nat fully, forcing her to reconsider the woman she thought she was,” the film’s synopsis runs.
Costa stars opposite Hovik Keuchkerian, best known for his turn as Bogotá in “La Casa de Papel” (aka “Money Heist”) and a Forqué Award best actor winner for his performance in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “Riot Police.” His credits also include “The Night Manager,” “Assassin’s Creed” and “The Head” Season 2).
The cast is rounded up by Hugo Silva (Pedro Almodóvar’s “I’m So Excited”), Luis Bermejo (Carlos Vermut’s “Magical Girl”), Ingrid García-Jonsson (Jaime Rosales’ “Beautiful Youth”) and Francesco Carril (Jonás Trueba’s “You Have To Come and See It”).
“The moment I read ‘Un Amor,’ I felt an overwhelming need to put the story on film,” said Coixet.
She added: “It dares us to rethink our perception of love and all its synonyms: Passion, despair, unease, fear and redemption, and drove me to ask myself: Is seduction an innocent weapon? When does this weapon turn on the one who wields it? Nat’s journey is intimate, raw and provocative…and there’s nothing I like more than a challenge!”
“‘Un Amor’ explores the subversive nature of gender roles. It is a striking account of existential doubt and the transformative power of carnal desire, that will move audiences worldwide,” said Fabien Westerhoff, Film Constellation producer and founder.
“Un amor” is produced by Buenapinta Media’s Marisa Fernández Armenteros, also a producer on Oscar-nominated “The Mole Agent,” who triumphed at the 2023 Goya awards on Saturday night winning best first film, actress (Costa) and supporting actress (Susi Sánchez) for “Lullaby.”
It is also produced by Perdición Films’ Sandra Hermida and Belén Atienza. Their extensive credits take in J.A. Bayona’s upcoming release “The Society of the Snow,” the big Netflix movie of 2023, the same director’s ‘The Impossible,” starring Naomi Watts and Tom Holland; and Sergio G. Sánchez’s “Marrowbone,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy and George MacKay.
Monte Glauco AIE also produces with the support of RTVE, Movistar+, ICAA and the government of La Rioja.
From her sophomore movie, 1996’s “Things I Never Told You,” Coixet’s films most usually feature women battling circumstance, whether abandonment by men (“Things,” “Nobody Wants the Night,” with Juliette Binoche), terminal cancer (“My Life Without Me,” starring Sarah Polley, Scott Speedman and Mark Ruffalo), trauma (“Words”), sexism (“The Yellow Roof”), homophobia (“Elisa & Marcela”) or a crusty British 1950s establishment (“The Bookshop,” starring Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy).
Starring opposite Christopher Abbott in Nicolas Pesce’s “Piercing” and with Josh O’Connor in Harry Wootliff’s “Only You,” Spain’s Costa won a Lola Award, for her star turn in “Victoria,” a rare triumph for a non-German.
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