Information about Guerrilla (film)

Guerrilla (film)
Directed by	Steven Soderbergh
Produced by	Steven Soderbergh Peter Buchman Laura Bickford Benicio del Toro William Pohlad
Written by	unknown
Starring	Benicio del Toro Javier Bardem Benjamin Bratt Franka Potente Ryan Gosling
Distributed by	Focus Features
Language	English
IMDb profile

Guerrilla is a 2008 biopic about Argentine-born medic and revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967), most famous for being a key leader in Fidel Castro's forces against Fulgencio Batista. After his work in Cuba, Che moved on to other causes in Africa and Latin America, eventually being captured and killed by counter-insurgency rangers in the mountains of Bolivia.

According to the official Soderbergh website, the release should happen in 2008 but the exact date is yet to be confirmed.

According to an October 2006 article in Variety magazine, Soderbergh plans to make two films about Che with the other called The Argentine. "The Argentine will focus on the Cuban revolution, from the moment Fidel Castro, Guevara and other revolutionaries landed on the Caribbean island, until they toppled the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista two years later. Guerrilla will focus on the years following the Cuban revolution. It will begin with Che's trip to the UN headquarters in New York in 1964, until his death in the Bolivian mountains in 1967."^[1]

Soderbergh will shoot both films back to back over a 90-day period beginning in May 2007 with most of the dialogue in Spanish. According to an interview in Sight and Sound magazine, the first film "will be shot in 16mm anamorphic" and "The second is in Super-16, 1.85:1. No dollies, no cranes, it's all either handheld or tripods. I want it to look nice but simple. We'll work with a very small group: basically me, the producer Gregory Jacobs and the unit production manager."^[2] Soderbergh has also stated that the films were being made with no U.S. financing: "It was very frustrating to know that this is a zeitgeist movie and that some of the very people who told me how much they now regret passing on Traffic passed on this one too. But as it turned out, we have all the financing we need without an American distribution deal."^[2]

Benicio del Toro will play Che in both movies. Franka Potente and Benjamin Bratt are attached to play key roles. Catalina Sandino has also been cast.^[3] Javier Bardem was in talks for a possible role, yet he appears to be un-attached to the project according to IMDB.

Early reports state that Soderbergh has already shot most of the opening footage with del Toro and Julia Ormond. She plays a television journalist acting as an informal intermediary between the Kennedy White House and Cuba.^[1] Soderbergh will be spending nine weeks filming in Spain.^[3]

In addition, Soderbergh has also shot a documentary while researching both films, with interviews with many who fought alongside Che in Cuba and Bolivia.

Trivia

• Film director Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line) wrote a screenplay for the film, but later relinquished the project to Steven Soderbergh. He filmed The New World instead.

References

External links

•  • [ e] Films by Steven Soderbergh

sex, lies, and videotape (1989) • Kafka (1991) • King of the Hill (1993) • Underneath (1995) • Gray's Anatomy (1996) • Schizopolis (1996) • Out of Sight (1998) • The Limey (1999) • Erin Brockovich (2000) • Traffic (2000) • Ocean's Eleven (2001) • Full Frontal (2002) • Solaris (2002) • Eros (Equilibrium) (2004) • Ocean's Twelve (2004) • Bubble (2006) • The Good German (2006) • Ocean's Thirteen (2007) • Guerrilla (2008)