Álex de la Iglesia to shoot Leo Messi biopic in Argentinian-Spanish co-production

By contributing blogger Benjamín Harguindey

Álex de la Iglesia must make his own portrait of Lionel Messi.

Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia is slated to helm a Lionel Messi biopic in an Argentinian-Spanish co-production. De la Iglesia visited earlier this month Messi’s birthplace Rosario, gathering testimonies about his childhood and even visiting the small pitch where the current football ace played for the first time in his life. The project should be new ground for the filmmaker, best known for humorously grotesque cult films like The Day of the Beast (El día de la bestia, 1995) and Ferpect Crime (Crimen ferpecto, 2004).

Lionel Messi in the spotlight.

The Buenos Aires Herald reports De la Iglesia also visited Messi’s home, his primary school and the Newell’s Old Boys Stadium, where Messi made his bones as a football star. The film is to be scripted by several writers, including veteran coach Jorge Valdano. It appears the documentary is also to include dramatizations, though whether these will carry the filmmaker’s signature bizarre touch is a mystery.

The project is of course currently in pre-production and no release date has been tentatively announced. Álex de la Iglesia last visited Argentina to give a masterclass in light of the December release of his The Witches of Zugarramurdi (Las brujas de Zugarramurdi, 2013), and is said to be returning from February 10 to 17 to start shooting footage in Rosario.

Here’s a link to the original Buenos Aires Herald article:

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/149330/alex-de-la-iglesia-to-shoot-messi-biopic