Gaviria's 'Traidores' finds producers
Fehrmann, World Wide to co-produce film
Sixaola and World Wide together will put up 30% of the financing. Fehrmann will take a cut of Spanish and Portuguese revenues.
International sales rights outside Spain and Colombia have been acquired by Kevin William's KWA.
"Traidores" begins shooting in August. A Colombian thriller-Western set in 1962, "Traidores" turns on a Colombian federal agent's manhunt of a sanguinary outlaw Sangrenegra (literally Black Blood).
And Gaviria returns to the 1960s setting to explain the makings -- or unmaking -- of his country.
"Some rebels remained bandoleros -- bandits -- while others became politicized, creating the Farc guerrilla movement in 1964," Gaviria said.
Gaviria broke through with the high-profile Colombian trilogy centering on violence and street kids (Cannes competish payers "Rodrigo D" and "The Rose Seller") and drug trafficking ("Additions and Subtractions," which competed at San Sebastian in 2004).
Like these films, "Traidores" will enlist non-pro thesps. The screenplay, which Gaviria is now completing, pays large attention to period farmsteads, clothing, uniforms and signs of status or wealth. It is written by Gaviria and historian Pedro Claver Tellez, based on one of the latter's books.
Associate-produced by longtime Gaviria collaborator Carlos Guerrero, "Traidores" will shoot on location around Tolima, where Colombian agents faced off with rural warlords in the 1960s, Gaviria said. It will shoot in 16mm, aiding camera mobility and a period look.
Film has a good chance of pulling down 125% of Colombian tax break coin, said producer Freddy Ferhmann.
Budgeted at $1.9 million, "Traidores" in 2007 won a roughly $300,000 production subsidy from the Colombian Culture and Cinematography Ministry.
