12/07/2022 - Blanca Portillo, playing the saint in her older years and Greta Fernández in her youth, stars in this adaptation of the play La lengua en pedazos, by Juan Mayorga

Promo image for Teresa by Paula Ortiz (© BTeam Pictures)

After the great critical and public success of her second feature film (after Chrysalis [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) The Bride [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paula Ortiz
film profile], with 12 Goya nominations and the Feroz Award for Best Dramatic Film, and her participation in the episodic films En casa and Historias para no dormir [+see also:
series review
trailer
series profile], Teresa [+see also:
film review
film profile], the new film by Paula Ortiz, whose shooting was initially announced for last year, will start filming on 18 July for six weeks in different areas of Barcelona and Huesca.

However, according to the production companies, it is not a biopic in the usual sense, but a free adaptation of the 2013 play La lengua en pedazos, by Juan Mayorga (Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2022), which in turn is based on the book El Libro de la vida, by Saint Teresa of Jesus. The plot of the film presents Teresa, who patiently awaits the arrival of the inquisitor to be judged. Her future depends on his visit and his words: freedom, prison or the stake.

This duel between two completely opposing people; Teresa, who is played by Blanca Portillo after winning the Goya for Maixabel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Icíar Bollaín
film profile], in the role of adult Teresa; Asier Etxeandia (Pain & Glory [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Antonio Banderas
Q&A: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile]), who is reunited with the director after appearing in The Bride, in the role of the inquisitor, and Greta Fernández (A Thief's Daughter [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Belén Funes
film profile]) as young Teresa. The cast is completed by Consuelo Trujillo (Verónica [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Paco Plaza
film profile]), Luis Bermejo (Magical Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlos Vermut
film profile]) and Claudia Traisac (Escobar: [+see also:
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trailer
making of
film profile] Paradise Lost [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile]).

Paula Ortiz said, "It is a privilege to be able to connect with the work of Juan Mayorga, undeniably one of the great names in Spanish culture today and whose career, not only as a playwright but also as a thinker, I have been following and admiring for years. And it is an even greater privilege to be able to take on this play in which Mayorga has woven his text entirely from the original writings of Teresa de Jesús, one of the most tense, brilliant, poetic and contradictory pens in our language. All the dialogue in this play are original words of the saint and everything in it is ablaze. As it is a battle between one of the most brilliant minds in our culture against an inquisitor who wants to burn her... or save her.”

Teresa is a film produced by the Spanish companies La lengua en pedazos AIE, Bluebirds Films and Inicia Films, and the Belgian company Umedia Production. It has the participation of  RTVE, Orange and Aragón TV, and is financed by ICAA and ICEC. Bteam Pictures will distribute it in Spain.

(Translated from Spanish)