Apio Verde Explores Abortion-Based Horror
Steve Barton
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Screen Daily
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To call abortion a hot-button issue is a bit of an understatement. No matter which side of the fence you fall on pertaining to the topic, it’s bound to be mired in controversy. Much like this latest flick will be.
According to Screen Daily Chilean director Francesc Morales (Humanimal) is currently shooting his second feature, Apio Verde, a psychological thriller which “starts as a social drama and ends as a horror film.”
The movie is about consequences of Chile being one of the ten countries in the world where therapeutic abortion is illegal. Catherine Mazoyer stars in “the story of a young woman waiting to give birth to a son with a terminal disease.” The cast also features Cristian Gajardo, Catalina Aguayo, Andres Gomez, Teresita Reyes, Carolina Paulsen, Sonia Mena, Ramon Llao, Jenny Cavallo, Pamela Leiva, Inigo Urrutia, and Gregory Cohen.
Morales, the film’s director and screenwriter, said: “This is very real situation that has happened many times in our country. Since 1989, a few months before the end of the Chilean dictatorship, it was stated that therapeutic abortion would be considered illegal, not even when the life of the mother is in danger. The realism is very important in this film, which is why the story is based on the lives of many real people, and it also shows how politics and religion get involved in a subject like this. Yet, the movie is not a drama, but a thriller that states how this is not only an attempt to [supress] human rights but also a situation that always leads to a violent resolution.”
The shoot, on location in Santiago and Valparaiso, will wrap in mid-December. The team aims to have the film showing at festivals in 2012, and a rough cut is being introduced at Ventana Sur, a dedicated Latin American film market organized by Cannes Marche du Film and Argentina’s Incaa Film Institute held in Buenos Aires, this week.
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