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PRODUCTION / FUNDING Spain / France

Carlota Martínez Pereda’s Piggy to be turned into a feature

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- After garnering myriad prizes with her terrifying short of the same name, the Spanish filmmaker is stretching the tension out into a feature that has just started principal photography

Carlota Martínez Pereda’s Piggy to be turned into a feature
Actress Laura Galán and director Carlota Martínez Pereda during the shoot for Piggy (© Rita Noriega)

On 17 June, filming began in Villanueva de la Vera (Cáceres, Extremadura) for Piggy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlota Pereda
film profile
]
, the debut feature-length film by Carlota Martínez Pereda. The movie is based on the short of the same name, which earned the filmmaker a slew of prizes, including the 2019 Goya Award and the José María Forqué Award for Best Fiction Short, as well as the Slamdance Russo Brothers Fellowship (a grant for a filmmaker selected by the Russo brothers, famed directors of The Avengers and Captain America).

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This raw, tense suspense film stars Laura Galán (who previously performed in the short Piggy and has also appeared in movies of the likes of Secret Origins [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), Richard Holmes (Sky High [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniel Calparsoro
film profile
]
) and Carmen Machi (seen not long ago in It Snows in Benidorm [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isabel Coixet
film profile
]
and El cover [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, as well as recently shooting The Volunteer [+see also:
film review
film profile
]
, the new film by Nely Reguera). They are flanked by Claudia SalasIrene FerreiroCamille AguilarJosé Pastor, Pilar CastroChema del Barco and Adrian Grösser.

“I wrote this story in order to face up to my fear: a fear that stems from real life… Because being a teenager can be terrifying,” explains the director. “Piggy is the story of Sara: I know her, I know who she is, where she comes from and what she’s been through. When that happens, you can’t move on until you let the story out into the world, and it stops living in your head and becomes everyone’s property.”

The screenplay depicts how, for Sara, summer entails having to put up with the other girls in her town and their constant jibes… But it all stops when a stranger turns up and kidnaps the bullies. Sara knows more than she lets on, and she will have to decide between talking and rescuing the girls, or saying nothing in order to protect the stranger who has saved her.

“I’m lucky enough to be able to enjoy this journey with a marvellous team that shares my love for our characters and for their conflicts, and we all have a passion to tell stories from a place of emotion and enjoyment, reflecting something we all know, which we can relate to and which is very much part of us. Because Piggy is a rural thriller under the beating sun of the Extremaduran summer, with Calippo ice lollies, siestas, bulls, open-air dances, women sat in the cool of the shade and, of course, the fear of what people might say,” sums up the first-time director.

Piggy is being produced by Morena Films together with Backup Studio (France) and Cerdita AIE, in conjunction with La Banque Postale and Indéfilms. It boasts the involvement of RTVE and Movistar Plus+, and the support of Eurimages, Creative Europe - MEDIA and the Community of Madrid. At the project stage, it was selected by the Cannes Film Festival, as part of the Focus CoPro initiative, and it won at the Pop Up Residency for feature development. Filmax will take care of distributing it in Spanish theatres.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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