Panama’s Abner Benaim has boarded as a co-director of the fiction series “School of the Americas” (“Escuela de las Américas”), which will star two of Chile’s most internationally renowned thespians: Daniela Vega, who headed the Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman,) and Alfredo Castro, a Pablo Larrain regular who’s also starred in a slew of Latin American projects.
The project has been selected for the Co-Production and Financing Forum at Madrid-based confab Iberseries & Platino Industria which takes place Sept. 29-Oct. 2.
Benaim was an obvious addition to the project given its subject matter and setting. “School of the Americas” begins with an exhumation at the site of the 1983 El Jazmín massacre, which yields a graduation photograph of four commandos with their faces scratched out and a pendant stamped Fort Gulick, the U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone, site of the infamous U.S. Army School of the Americas.
Panamanian-American human rights investigator Inés Vega recognizes the massacre’s signature: counterinsurgency doctrine taught at the School. When someone tries to kill her, the cold case turns personal. Tracking four graduates across three continents, she uncovers what the School really taught – and who is still protecting its legacy.
