Fox International Productions president Sanford Panitch said the film will open in its home county this autumn and added that sales head Shebnem Askin-Schreger had closed a deal with Ad Vitam for France.

Gerardo Naranjo directed the Canana and Fox International Productions drama, which will receive its world premiere in Un Certain Regard and tells of an aspiring beauty queen who unwittingly gets involved with a criminal group in contemporary Mexico’s ongoing drug wars. The story was inspired by a story in the Mexican press about a woman who was accused of being involved with a cartel.

Pablo Cruz produced and his Canana partners Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna served as executive producers alongside Geminiano Pineda. Newcomer Stephanie Sigman plays the lead and Miss Bala also stars Noe Hernandez.

“Gerardo is a talented director whose previous work impressed me greatly,” Panitch said. “We are excited to be working with him on such a provocative film as Miss Bala.”

“We needed to find a way of telling the story that was different and more real,” screenwriter Mauricio Katz, who co-wrote the script with Naranjo, said.

“This is our view of the current situation in Mexico, and we want the rest of the world to know what’s happening here,” Cruz said.

“It’s a very, very violent world, and Stephanie Sigman, who is in every scene of the film, is still recovering from making it,” Naranjo added.

El Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía IMCINE, Consejo Nacional Para La Cultura y Las Artes CONACULTA and Fondo de Inversión y Estímulos al Cine co-produced.

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