Austin-based Mankind Entertainment and UK-based Maven Pictures announced during this year’s SXSW that financing for the bio-pic Alina of Cuba: La Hija Rebelde is now in place.  Ana Villafañe has been cast in the title role as the illegitimate daughter of Fidel Castro. Spanish Academy-Goya winner Miguel Bardem  (La Madre, Swindled) will direct.  Production begins August 15 in Columbia.

In 2015, Miami-born and raised Villafañe  appeared on The Tonight Show to announce she had been personally selected by Gloria Estefan to play her in the Broadway musical On Your Feet.  That same year Villafañe was named as the Broadway Breakout star by the Hollywood Reporter.

Villafañe will once again be portraying a real life person in Alina of Cuba, the global bio-pic of Alina Fernandez life story.  Fernandez was born of a passionate love affair between Cuban revolutionist Castro and Natalia “Naty” Revuelta, a Cuban-born socialite who sacrificed her and her physician husband’s personal belongings and finances to help start up and fund the revolution. Fernandez learned of her relationship to Fidel Castro at the age of 10, when after years of secret visits to her home, she was finally told by her mother that “El Comandante” was her biological father. Fernandez  eventually grew to become Castro’s most outspoken critic. She was arrested on more than one occasion for trying to  leave Cuba and was classified a dissident forbidden to travel. 

Born in 1959, three years before the Cuban revolution, Fernández became an anti-communist activist by the1980s. When she was finally able to leave Cuba she defected to Spain, before relocating to Miami when she was granted political asylum in the United States in 1993.  ??In 2014, after living in exile for over two decades, Fernandez was finally able to return to her homeland, with the permission of her uncle Raul Castro, to visit her mother before she passed.

“As history has turned the page into a new era, my hope for the future is to see our new leaderships come together to find greater solutions and opportunities for all Cubans,” said Fernandez

“I was hooked by the universality of this story, which focuses on the relationship between a father and his daughter…[and] a most relevant figures in Hispanic and global history – Fidel Castro”, said Bardem (La Madre, Swindled) who will  be making his first U.S crossover film expanding his notable award laden career in Spain and Europe. 

Academy Award nominee, Jose Rivera (The  Motorcycle Diaries), whose signature work garnered him two BAFTA awards, spent time with Fernandez doing research in preparation to write the script.  Collaborating with Rivera as co-writer is Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz (Anna in the Tropics) completing the highly noted creative team.

Redbud Studios’ Allen Gilmer (Frank & Penelope, QT8: The First Eight) is the producer who green lighted the financing along with Joe Lamy and the Lamy Group.  He is an Austin-based producer who began his work as a tech pioneer as the founder and longtime CEO/Chairman  of Enverus

“This fits us”, said Glimer.  “A  meaningful story about a very brave person who dared to question the narrative being fed to her by the most privileged in her world”. 

The rights to the film were originally picked up for development in 2007 by John O’Felan of Mankind Entertainment.  He was the lead creative developer and producer who brought together the production group in collaboration with Maven Pictures’ Celine Rattray.

“The exile piece of the story called me,” said O’Felan. “When I saw this story, I saw an exciting opportunity to  participate in something historic and meaningful during this new millennium. I think distributors will see that Hispanic American inclusive is where the future is at.”

O’Felan and Joe Lamy head Mankind Entertainment which focuses primarily on early stage financing, development, production and solicitation of award-driven specialty films.   

The film production will be managed by Jaguar Bites in Colombia, who is also assisting in tax credit financing.  Talent deals were put together by O’Felan and overseen by Maven Pictures’ Celine Rattray. 

Villafañe was most recently cast in Apple TV’s upcoming Bad Monkey–where  she can be seen co-starring with Vince Vaughn.

Villafañe and Rivera are both represented by UTA—Rivera is also repped by manager Rick Berg of Code Entertainment. Bardem is represented  by Alter Ego Management, also based in Spain. Financing was arranged by Mankind and Redbud Studios.

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