Antonio Banderas has signed to star in Argentinian writer-director duo Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s Mare Nostrum, with the UK’s HanWay Films launching sales at the upcoming AFM.
Banderas will play the captai of a giant commercial container ship carrying a billion-euro cargo from Istanbul to Cape Town. In the middle of a storm, he comes across a small boat packed with African migrants on the verge of sinking. The captain faces a moral dilemma: rescue them or leave them to their fate. He decides to bring them aboard, unaware that this will trigger an international political crisis.
Spain’s Jose Luis Escolar is producing the film that will start shooting in Spain in March 2027.
The directors, whose credits include Official Competition and The Distinguished Citizen, are collaborating with their longtime screenwriting partner Andrés Duprat on the script.
“With Mare Nostrum, we wanted to explore a world shaped by migration, borders and the contradictions of human nature,” said the directors. “We see this as our biggest and most ambitious film to date, bringing together tension, drama and uncomfortable humour on a scale we have never attempted before.”
“Cohn and Duprat are Latin American superstars,” added HanWay CEO Gabrielle Stewart. “It is with huge excitement that HanWay comes on board their epic new film for a journey with zero filmmaking borders and an opportunity to be, for once, thoroughly entertained as we look at our own hypocritical and baffling world through their unique lens.”
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