Granada, Madrid and Soria are currently hosting the shoot for Lorca, the new film by Fernando Franco, director of Wounded (for which he scooped the Special Jury Prize at San Sebastián and the Goya Award for Best New Director), Dying, The Rite of Spring, Subsuelo and the recent La luz. The screenplay was penned by Fernando Navarro, a two-time Goya nominee (for Verónica and Unknown Origins), and reconstructs the final weeks in the life of Federico García Lorca, from his flight from Madrid after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War to his execution in Granada.

The film is toplined by Nacho Sánchez, Goya-nominated for his turns in Seventeen and Manticore, who appeared in Franco’s two most recent films and who, years ago, also starred in the stage play La piedra oscura by Alberto Conejero, which also revolves around the figure of Lorca. Rounding off the cast are Francesco Carril (Three Goodbyes, the series The New Years), Stéphanie Magnin (Saturn Return, the series The Truthers), Puchi Lagarde (recently in the series Galgos and The Day of the Jackal) and Pepo Oliva (recently in the series The Unit).

The feature will tell the story of how, in 1936, a man in his mid-thirties travels on a night train to his hometown of Granada. He is fleeing the violent, turbulent days in Madrid during a sticky, stifling summer. But he won’t find the calm he is seeking in his city, and violence soon spreads. The man is forced to flee his family home. His life may be in danger. Until, one day, an armed group finds him and takes him to a cell. There, he is beaten and humiliated without any explanation, without any reason. Terror takes hold. That man is Federico García Lorca.

Franco states: “Since premiering my first feature, Wounded, in 2013, I have received various calls from production companies offering me screenplays to direct, and yet, until now, I had never come across one that I felt was right for me… or that I was right for. It’s not that there haven’t been interesting proposals - that is not the issue - but it had never been the case that I felt a particular script and I could come together to dance to the same melody in total harmony. Until now, that is. The call from Cristóbal García to offer me Lorca has, finally, broken that streak.”

The movie joins a number of other artistic works this season that are bringing renewed attention to the figure of the Granada-born writer, such as Juan Diego Botto’s hit stage play Una noche sin luna, the feature La bola negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, winner of the Best Director Award at the most recent Cannes Film Festival (and inspired by the aforementioned La piedra oscura), and the documentary Broken Voices, which will be presented at the upcoming San Sebastián Film Festival. Directed by Manuel Menchón, the latter draws on the memoirs, personal materials and recollections kept secretly by Juan Ramírez de Lucas, identified as Lorca’s last love.

Lorca is being produced by Cristóbal García for La Terraza Films, together with Ferdydurke Films, Ikiru Films, Miss Muerte, Kankana Films, Anochece en Granada AIE and Belgian firm Harald House. It boasts the involvement of RTVE, Movistar Plus and Canal Sur, as well as backing from the ICAA and Eurimages, and will hit Spanish cinema screens courtesy of LaZona Pictures.