Diego Luna readies third feature

Diego Luna, still in post on his second directorial effort Chavez, is set to start shooting his third feature Mr Pig within the next month.

Details about the English-language film are under wraps, but Luna’s Canana Films is producing.

Chavez, starring Michael Pena as labour organiser Cesar E Chavez, is being readied for delivery later this year. The cast also features John Malkovich, America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson and Wes Bentley. It is Canana’s biggest production to date and the second English-language feature after Come Out & Play.

Canana, founded in 2005, works across distribution (including digital distribution), film and TV production, branded content and documentary festival Ambulante.

Canana is at EFM with the debut of Mundial, a joint venture with IM Global. That sales slate includes Sundance opener Who Is Dayani Cristal?, Michael Rowe’s Leap Year follow-up Manto Acuifero and Mariana Chenillo’s love story Paradise.

Canana CEO Julian Levin told Screen that the sales outfit, headed by Cristina Garza, was “a wonderful partnership.” “We want to do it right,” he added of the launch. “It’s not about selling selling selling, it’s getting our names out there. “

All Canana’s future productions are expected to be sold via Mundial.

The company is also working with whisky brand Chivas for Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal to direct two short films (seen at www.chivascanana.com). “They (Chivas) heard we had done some work for a Coca-Cola water project, and they said ‘pitch us something, you have final cut.’ The Chivas brand is about friendship, and that’s important to Canana. That’s what attracted us, and it was interesting for Gael and Diego to work on directing for the same project. It was a good moment to breathe and do something fun.”

Canana’s TV production work includes the second season of Nino Santo, a series about faith vs traditional medicine and new TV series Alguien Mas, a romantic comedy/sitcom.

Levin joined the company in 2011 and has taken the outfit’s organic growth and added a more “corporate structure, to allow it to grow….We wanted to allow the company to become an incubator, and projects are cared for by each of the founders (Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal and Pablo Cruz).” In the past two years the staff has grown from 7 to about 25.

As a distributor in Mexico and Central America, the forthcoming slate includes The Master (a joint release with Sun), The Place Beyond The Pines and To The Wonder. The outfit also works with several Mexican or Latin American films per year.

Also here in Berlin, Canana announced its production deal with Participant Media’s new Participant PanAmerica.