03/03/2023 - The historical film centred around a young woman who faced turbulent, hard and dark times stars Daniela Brown, Blanca Romero and Carlos Cuevas

Barcelona-born Antonio Chavarrías, director of You'll Be Back, Celia's Lives [+see also:
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film profile] (selected in competition at San Sebastian), Childish Games [+see also:
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film profile] (selected in competition at the Berlinale) and the more recent The Chosen [+see also:
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film profile], finished shooting his new feature film, entitled La abadesa [+see also:
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film profile], at the end of February in Lleida. With this film, the director, producer and screenwriter explores the most human and personal side of a historical character, Emma, a young woman who decides to reclaim her power in order to confront a patriarchal and dominant world in a society that relegates women to a socially secondary role with no substance. It takes place in a dark and violent era, where a 17-year-old girl is appointed abbess and given the task of repopulating and Christianising territories on the border and at war with Islam.

The film stars Daniela Brown (an actress who has appeared in series such as Reyes de la noche and Días mejores), Blanca Romero (After [+see also:
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film profile], the series Bajo sospecha), Carles Cuevas (recently seen in the Netflix series Smiley), Ernest Villegas and Oriol Genís, and was filmed in January and February. Seven weeks in total, in locations such as Castillo de Loarre (Huesca), where films such as Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and Paul Urkijo’s Irati [+see also:
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film profile] (currently on the Spanish cinema billboard) were shot, and in the Turó de la Seu Vella (Lleida).

In the words of its director, La abadesa is "a story that gives us more insight into an almost unknown era, very hard and full of contradictions, to focus on the confrontation of three different, complex and antagonistic female worlds, those of Emma, Eloísa and Clara, united only by their condition as women in a world that denies them any of their rights."

La abadesa is a production from the Spanish companies Oberon Cinematográfica (Mónica Lozano and Antonio Chavarrías himself), Wanda Visión (the brothers Miguel and José María Morales), the Belgian company Saga Films (Hubert Toint) and Icono 2020 AIE, with the participation of RTVE and TV3. The film will be released in Spanish cinemas in autumn this year, distributed by Wanda Visión. Film Factory will manage the film’s international sales.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)