El convento, a film directed by Luis Galindo (the short film Me debes uno) and Ángel M Chivite (Bloggers), was shot last summer on location in Navarre and is now nearing the end of post-production. It’s a horror-thriller about women, religion, adolescence, sex and repression, inspired by the real-life case of the satanic nuns of Corella, which unfolded in the mid-18th century. Its cast boasts first-time actresses Nahia Bergasa and Mentxu Vicente alongside María Mercado (the series The Gypsy Bride [+lire aussi :
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fiche série]), Ana Álvarez (The Dead Mother, Suspicious Minds), Alessandra Borgia (Esterno sera [+lire aussi :
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fiche film]), Alfonsina Carrocio (Society of the Snow [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : J.A. Bayona
fiche film]) and Vanessa Baldonado.

The screenplay, written by Jesús Córdoba, tells of how Lucia (played by María Mercado) and Ana María (Nahia Bergasa), postulants who have recently arrived at a small convent, become embroiled in the strange events taking place there. Sister Águeda (Ana Álvarez), the mother superior famous for carrying out small miracles, welcomes them into the community and looks after them, but in actual fact, this nun is the epicentre of a series of atrocities that will affect the girls, the aim of which is to summon the Devil to Earth. After enduring various rituals and forms of abuse, the youngsters will have no choice but to fearlessly face up to their destiny if they want to survive.

"The film is told through the eyes of two innocent 17-year-old girls who, in 1750, join an institution imbued with a certain prestige thanks to its abbess. The cloistered convents, sacred places reserved for monastic life, simultaneously become mysterious places. For this reason, once inside this place, our protagonists expect nothing more than to find a life focused on penance and faith in God. Their vision will change as they gradually discover the centre’s true purpose,” the directors state. “We wanted to recreate a taut atmosphere, where the tension will be ramped up as the conspiracies unfurl, leading up to an unexpected ending,” they add.

Since 2002, Luis Galindo has worked on the production of more than 30 features and TV series, and with directors of the calibre of Álex de la Iglesia, Carlos Saur and Montxo Armendariz, among others. At that stage of his career, he directed the short film Mata a tu viejo and, in 2015, created Easy Productions, with which he directed the short Kruczak and the short horror Me debes uno, which was selected to partake in various festivals and was nominated for the Silver Meliès Awards.

For his part, Ángel M Chivite has worked as a production manager on features by José Luis Garci, such as The Grandfather and You’re the One (winner of the Goya Award for Best Production Design). In 2017, he helmed (together with Alberto Estévez) the sci-fi feature Bloggers.

El convento is a co-production by Luis Galindo and Ángel M Chivite for Elcon Films (Spain), Ignacio Garcia Cucucovich for Mother Superior (Uruguay), Viviana Calò for Teleaut Produzione (Italy), and Patrícia González and Enrique Fernández for Eterno Island Pictures (Spain). It was also selected for the Canary Islands Film Accelerator project lab, organised by the Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster, and has secured Generazinema development support from the Government of Navarre. Its international sales agent is Argentinian outfit Filmsharks.