Spain’s The Mediapro Studio is teaming with writer-director Marcel Barrena (“Mediterraneo: The Law of the Sea,” “100 Meters”) and Spanish star Eduard Fernández on real-life inspired social film “The 47.”
Scheduled to shoot in Catalan and Spanish June-July in Barcelona, “The 47” is based on the true story of Manolo Vital, a bus driver who, during the city’s expansion in the 1970s, help shape the Barcelona of today.
Produced by Jaume Roures and executive produced by Laura Fernández Espeso, Javier Méndez and Eva Garrido, the film is one of the projects The Mediapro Studio Distribution is presenting for international sales at the current Cannes’ Marché du Film.
Award-winning screenwriter-producer Alberto Marini (“Retribution,” “Sleep Tight”) co-wrote the script alongside Barrena.
Winner of three Goya Awards and a San Sebastian Silver Shell, Fernández (“Smoke & Mirrors,” “Everybody Knows”) plays the central character in the film.
The cast also takes in Clara Segura (“The Sea Inside”), Zoe Bonafonte (“Escándalo, relato de una obsesión”), Salva Reina (“Con quién viajas”), Aimar Vega (“Prison 77”) and Carlos Cuevas (“Merlí: Sapere Aude”), with a special appearance of Goya winner David Verdaguer (“Summer 1993”).
“The 47” tells the story of an act of peaceful dissent and the grassroots movement that in 1978 transformed Barcelona and changed the image of its suburbs forever. It is “a local tale about a universal story, of a mobilization that proved a catalyst for change, of people taking pride in their roots, of a neighborhood struggle and of the working class as a builder and driving force in cities,” The Mediapro Studio said Wednesday in a statement.
“‘The 47’ is the story of how an ordinary man was able to change the course of a whole neighborhood with one apparently simple act – proving that a bus could reach Torre Baró. Marcel Barrena tells the story of Manolo Vital with the same simplicity,” noted producer and Mediapro Group co-founder Jaume Roures.
“This is the story that has moved me the most out of all those I have followed and heard about in my life. It is the one I felt most compelled to tell,” added Barrena, a filmmaker with a knack for retelling true stories on the big screen in both documentary and biographical films, whose life-changing journey drama “Mediterraneo: The Law of the Sea,” won several international prizes, including the Audience Award at the 2021 Rome Film Festival.
In the 1960s and 1970s, much of Barcelona’s outer-radius hound and was built by immigrants from the Spanish regions of Extremadura and Andalusia, who were not considered part of the city. Their shanty towns didn’t even have running water or electricity.
Fed up with the City Council saying public transport couldn’t service such areas because the streets were too narrow and unsafe, Vital, a bus driver in Barcelona’s main public transport operator, sets out to show, at the wheel of the route 47 bus, that the authorities were wrong.
The film is being made in association with Catalan public broadcaster Televisió de Catalunya and the support of Catalan culture industry agency Icec.
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