CANNES– Rosie Day (“Outlander”), Harriet Sanson Harris (“Phantom Thread”) and Natalia Tena (“Game of Thrones”) will star in Spaniard Juanma Bajo Ulloa’s psychological thriller “Baby,” Variety has learned exclusively.
The project will be pitched on May 19 at Fantastic 7, a new Cannes initiative seeing seven of the world’s most prestigious fantastic festivals back and mentor a genre project.
“Baby” is put forward by the Sitges Intl. Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, represented by Sitges deputy general manager Mónica Garcia Massagué, which has created Fantastic 7 with Cannes Film Market executive director Jérôme Paillard and Ventana Sur and Blood Window founder Bernardo Bergeret.
“Baby” follows a young upper-class woman junkie who, unable to care for the newly-born baby, sells it to a midwife-child trafficker. Overcome with remorse, she will try to recover it.
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Javier Aguirresarobe, DP on Pedro Almodovar’s “Talk to Her” and Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” will serve as cinematographer.
“Baby,” which is being steered by Bajo Ulloa and producer Ferran Tomás, based out of Vitoria-based Fragil Zinema. International sales are under negotiations. The project was first unveiled at Paris’ Small is Beautiful“ networking event backed by Spain film authorities and Ile de France.
“’Baby’ will be a battle of emotions and strategies, lent urgency by a tragic countdown. Emotion, suspense, fear –that’s ‘Baby’,” Bajo Ulloa told Variety. “It’s a suspense story and the suspense is the salt of the cinema. The suspense of life is called uncertainty and life is permanent uncertainty. Therefore it’s a story about life.”
Bajo Ulloa broke through dramatically winning San Sebastian top Golden Shell for 1991’s “Butterfly Wings” and in 1997 directed “Airbag,” a huge hit channeling the comedic talents of a young irreverent new gentry of filmmakers just beginning to make their mark on the Spanish cinema. “Baby” is scheduled to shoot in August.
CREDIT: Fragil Zinema
