26/10/2018 - Principal photography for the feature debut by the award-winning short-film director, starring Greta Fernández and her father, Eduard Fernández, will wrap in Barcelona this week

Standing out among the projects that were presented in the Work-in Progress sidebar of Abycine Lanza last Friday 19 October was A Thief’s Daughter [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Belén Funes
film profile], the feature debut by Belén Funes (Barcelona, 1984), who has enjoyed immense success with her short films Sara a la fuga (Biznagas for Best Director and Best Short Film at the 2015 Málaga Film Festival) and The Hopeless (which is currently competing in the 20^th Abycine Festival). As a matter of fact, A Thief's Daughter, starring real-life father and daughter Eduard Fernández (Smoke & Mirrors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alberto Rodríguez
film profile]) and Greta Fernández, which will wrap its shoot in and around Barcelona in the next few days, is based on the aforementioned short Sara a la fuga. Greta Fernández previously put herself in Isabel Coixet’s capable hands to play one of the lesbian leads in Elisa & Marcela [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

The screenplay for A Thief's Daughter, written by the director herself together with Marçal Cebrián, follows Sara, a girl in her early twenties who has a six-month-old baby. Her greatest desire is to work, get back her partner – the father of her child – and finally form a family, thus also gaining custody of her younger brother, Martín; but the only obstacle in her path will be her own father, Manuel, with whom she has constant confrontations and arguments when he reappears in her life after a years-long absence.

According to Funes, with this film, which tells a story based on true events that the filmmaker knew of personally, she wants to “talk about family and the irreparable damage that parents wreak on their children, but also to paint a portrait of modern-day Spain. Sara is fighting to change her life and ensure a better future for her baby and her little brother; but the problem she runs up against is just as big as the financial crisis in my country. This is not a story with political ambitions, nor does it intend to bombard the viewer with propagandist messages, but it does aim to shine a spotlight on and talk about topics that are not normally discussed in film.”

A Thief's Daughter, the shoot for which has been ongoing for six weeks, is being produced by Oberón Cinematográfica and BTeam Prods, and it boasts the involvement of RTVE, TV3, Movistar Plus+, and support from the ICAA and ICEC. The project was part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Talent Lab and has secured backing from ARRI ISP. The cast is rounded off by Álex Monner, Frank Feys and Borja Espinosa. BTeam Pictures will be in charge of distributing the movie in Spain in 2019.

(Translated from Spanish)