Director J.A. Bayona Working on Feature Adaptation of Spanish Civil War Story
Spanish director, J.A. Bayona, known for helming The Impossible, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and two episodes of the series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, is developing an adaptation of Manuel Chaves Nogales’ short story collection A Sangre y Fuego. The stories are considered by some in Spain as the best portrayal by a Spaniard of its ghastly Spanish Civil War.
Bayona is working with writer-director Agustín Díaz Yanes (Alatriste, Gold, Don’t Tempt Me) to develop a script, based on the book by Chaves Nogales, who died in exile in London in 1944. Though fiction, all the stories in the book are based on true events, and it tells nine different stories.
They range from an account of Republican executions in a Madrid bombarded by Franco’s forces and his fascist allies to an Andalusian marquess who sets out to hunt communists with his personal death squad to a militia woman who saves the life of a right-wing lawyer out of compassion.
Bayona said at the Seville European Film Festival, which opened on Friday, that he has been developing the project for several years and is “especially interested in the humanist vision” that Chaves Nogales showed in the fiction book. He also explained that he has been in contact with the writer’s family for some time, and that he got to know the writer’s daughter, Pilar, who died in 2021 at the age of 101. She gave the director her important testimony and other information for the project.
This adaptation is early in development. We will keep you posted as more info becomes available.
via: Variety