Barcelona-based production company Mr. Miyagi has teamed with Uruguay’s Mother Superior and Argentina’s Sombracine to co-produce queer romantic comedy Astronaut, the feature directorial debut of producer-director David Matamoros.
Lead-produced by Mr. Miyagi’s Matamoros and Ángeles Hernández, Astronaut follows David, an inveterate romantic who has a travel agency specialising in trips linked to romantic comedies. His 15-year relationship with Quique is stagnant. So, David decides to give Quique a trip down Route 66 with a special stop in Las Vegas.
Shooting is scheduled to begin on August 7 in Buenos Aires and to continue in Barcelona and Las Vegas. Casting will include Raul Tejón (Locked Up), Raul Fernández de Pablo (La Unidad) and Alejandro Nones (Who Killed Sara?).
Matamoros previously ran Zentropa Spain, an affiliate company of Lars von Trier’s European network of production houses. Matamoros recently teamed with Basque Films to co-produce Netflix’ horror fable hit The Platform, directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, winner of the best film at the 52nd Sitges’ International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia.
Other productions in which Mr. Miyagi has been involved are Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Évolution, a 2015 San Sebastian Festival Special Jury Prize winner, which sold strongly for Wild Bunch, the soon to be released The Lighthouse directed by Ángeles Hernández, and José Skaf’s Vulcania.
Mr. Miyagi, Sombracine and Mother Superior have teamed on projects before. “This is a truly genuine partnership between the three production houses,” Sombracine’s Alberto Masliah told Screen. Sombracine previously partnered with Mr. Miyagi to co-produce Marco Berger’s The Astronaut Lovers.
According to Matamoros, Mr. Miyagi aims to make projects that are a balance between an auteur’s aspirations and industry interests. “Astronaut is a new approach to The Wizard of Oz; in that journey, it makes sense that nowadays Dorothy would run into characters from all over the world,” he said.
Based in Montevideo, Mother Superior is a genre-focused company run by Ignacio García Cucovich and Gustavo Hernández, the director of horror hit The Silent House and zombie thriller Virus:32. “Astronaut is a big step in order to strengthen our ties with our main co-producing countries. That said, it’s important to underline Uruguay’s institutional aim of internationalising its audiovisual industry. Co-productions such as Astronaut are the ideal projects for showing and exporting talent,” Cucovich stated.
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