05/12/2025 - The Panamanian director explores the cracks in the system in his take on the Panama Papers case

Papers [+see also:
interview: Arturo Montenegro
film profile], the new film by Panamanian director Arturo Montenegro, hits Spanish cinemas on 5 December, courtesy of #ConUnPack, following its world premiere in Panama and a successful initial run which has sparked interest from festivals and international markets. Inspired by the media and political impact of the Panama Papers, this emotional thriller blends tension, vulnerability and an urgent reflection on structural inequalities. Cineuropa chatted with the director about the origins and ambitions of this work.

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Cineuropa: The film takes its cue from an incident which had huge, global repercussions. What led you to tackle it through fiction, and which aspect of the story did you feel the film could explore in a particular way?
Arturo Montenegro: It’s true that fiction allows you to weave tension into specific timeframes, showing how this huge case reverberates inside the head of a woman called Ana Méndez. Cinema allowed me to develop the parallel universe with origami as the central idea behind “a paper world in flames”, something that represents a value she’s inherited from her father and passed on to her daughters; the idea of creating beauty out of what’s already been discarded. And since the film is called Papers, I felt it would offer an important point of emotional connection for the audience, so they could perceive her feelings in a subtle way throughout the story.

How did you strike a balance between the thriller elements and the more intimate, character-driven narrative?
We adopted a wave-effect: everything’s fine one moment, it’s calm, and then a wave rolls in and rocks them. Then the calm returns, and a bigger wave hits, and then, before long, a tsunami’s unleashed. The tension becomes unbearable, and it’s felt inside and out, everywhere, culminating in a relentless chase.

The film is hitting Spain after its premiere in Panama. How do you expect European audiences, and Spanish audiences in particular, to connect with the story?
I hope they connect wonderfully, as they did this week at the premiere here in Madrid, in a packed movie theatre which ended in an effusive round of applause. That suggests to me that the message has resonated, and now everything depends on the film’s theatrical distribution, so that audiences can discover this story in greater depth.

The Panama Papers exposed inequalities and structural imbalances. What kind of conversation would you like the film to spark?
The main conversation would be how to achieve a “level playing field”, equal conditions for all countries. Tax authorities and international organisations took advantage of this event to force so-called tax havens to adopt more regulations and information-sharing agreements with first-world countries, without applying the same measures in their own territories, which are also used for financial crimes. The big fish are still eating the smaller fish in every sense.

(Translated from Spanish)