Bernal, Luna board 'Pedro Paramo'

Pic is based on Rulfo's novel

By JOHN HOPEWELL

Bernal

MADRID — Canana, the Mexican production-distribution shingle of actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, is finalizing contracts to co-produce “Pedro Paramo,” with Bernal toplining in the title role.

Canana joins already confirmed Sogecine, the Spanish producer of “The Others” and “Sex and Lucia,” and Andres Santana’s Ariane-Ariete, as well as Portu-gal’s Take 2000.

A big screen adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s novel of the same name, a milestone in modern Latin American literature, “Pedro Paramo” is written and helmed by Mateo Gil, the longtime screen-writing partner of Alejandro Amenabar.

The $7.5 million drama will shoot for 11 weeks from September, mostly in Mexico, including Jalisco, but also Spain.

Juan Rulfo’s 1955 novel follows an ingenue narrator, Juan Preciado, to his mother’s dust-bowl home village, which he gradually realizes is -- literally -- a ghost village.