Spanish star Paz Vega stars in Venezuelan thriller “Death Has No Master”

Spanish film star Paz Vega is set to star in Venezuelan director Jorge Thielen Armand's “Death Has No Master,” which has been selected for the Venice Production Bridge's Gap-Financing Market, which runs August 30-September 1.

The film follows Venezuelan Carolina (Vega), who returns to the country after 20 years abroad to find that her family's cocoa plantation has been occupied by the former workers, who want to stay at any cost. In the cat-and-mouse game that ensues, she reveals a brutal side of herself as she tries to seek justice in a lawless country.

Producer Stefano Centini of Rome-based Volos Films Italia said it was a “breakthrough” for the Spanish superstar, who recently premiered his directorial debut, “Rita,” in the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival. Armand added: “We are used to seeing Paz Vega as an icon of beauty and glamour, and in this film we will see her in the dirt.”

Death Has No Master was written and directed by Armand and produced by La Faena Films, Fait Divers Media, Volos Films Italia, Tres Cinematografía, Whisky, Su Dosis, Paloma Negra, Deal Productions, Mutokino and Japonica Films. Armand's debut feature, La Soledad, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2016, while his second feature, La Fortaleza, premiered at the Tiger Competition in Rotterdam in 2020.

Armand's third feature tells the emotional journey of a filmmaker who fled his country nearly two decades ago and has spent the years since “traveling around and trying to get somewhere that feels closer to Venezuela,” the director said Diversity.

He now lives in Italy and said he shares the feelings of many of his exiled compatriots who are “waiting to see if things change and dreaming of returning one day.”

“This is my story, but also the story of another 8 million Venezuelans,” he said. “I feel [Carolina] represents the fears and dreams of many people who have left, who have left things behind, who have left their country or their family, friends and who are afraid of returning and not knowing what they will find.”

“Death Has No Master” is set at a time of growing unrest in Venezuela, which has suffered a crippling economic crisis for more than a decade, forcing many to resort to desperate measures. The director said he wanted to make a film that explored moral gray areas and focused on “people who are human and people who make mistakes and people who do questionable things.”

“For me, justice is the theme of this film,” he explained. “It's a film where the characters have to take justice into their own hands,” which leads them down a path whose violent consequences are “irreversible.” “That's what happens in Venezuela, of course. But I feel like that's what's happening all over the world, where justice is becoming more and more malleable.”

Centini, who spent 15 years in Taiwan before returning two years ago to set up an Italian branch of his production company, said the project came at just the right time as he was expanding his focus to Europe and Latin America. The film's producers include Felipe Gálvez's Chilean western “The Settlers,” which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes last year, and Argentine director Eduardo Williams' docudrama “The Human Surge 3.”

“Death Has No Master” is currently planned as a co-production between six countries, Venezuela, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain and Canada, the latter through La Faena Films, a Toronto-based company co-founded in 2015 by Armand and Rodrigo Michelangeli.

“Venezuela cannot be the main financing country of the film both because of the politically charged issues and because of the situation in the country,” Centini said, adding that producers are trying to cover the last 20 to 25 percent of the budget and aim to start production in the first quarter of 2025.

While the filmmakers are exploring the possibility of shooting in Colombia, where Armand recently shot the short film “Pasta Negra” with “Death Has No Master” cinematographer Simone D'Arcangelo, they are also exploring “other possibilities,” according to Centini.

The producer will be in Venice with three films, including “Stranger Eyes” by Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua, which is nominated for the Golden Lion, “Wishing on a Star” by Péter Kerekes from the Horizons program and “Guardians of the Jade Mountain” by Hayoun Kwon, which premieres in the festival’s VR competition.