France’s Caractères and Chile’s Planta Have Boarded San Sebastian Co-Production Forum-bound ‘Hard Boiled School’ (EXCLUSIVE)

France’s Caractères Productions and Chile’s Planta Prods. have boarded Argentine Hernán Rosselli’s “Hard Boiled School,” a multi-country production that includes lead producer Un Puma (Argentina) alongside co-producers from Austria (Nabis Filmgroup), Uruguay (Tarkiofilm), Brazil (Multiverso Produções) and Portugal (Oublaum Filmes). 

Selected to participate in the San Sebastian Film Festival’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, “Hard Boiled School” (“La escuela pesada”) underscores the surge in cooperation among international producers as they face a number of headwinds in their respective countries, including higher production costs, state fundings in flux and reduced budgets.

Currently at the financing stage, the drama follows real-life legendary Argentine thief Pedro Palomar who has been released from prison after serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery. Once he gets out, he is surprised to learn that he is now in charge of a former partner’s daughter.

Said its helmer-scribe Rosselli: “Like ‘Mauro,’ my previous film, and ‘Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed,’ recently premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, ‘Hard Boiled School’ combines professional actors with people whose real selves and their characters don’t have such clear boundaries. Part of the film’s tone is based on that tension. The co-existence of professional and amateur actors lets the freshness of that middle tone prevent the film from falling into any commonplaces and mannerisms, without giving up the dramatic function of the scenes.”

“Some of the actors are part of the intimate environment of Pedro Palomar and mine, neighbors and friends of the Lomas de Zamora neighborhood, which is the main setting of this story,” he added. The cast of characters include Palomar playing himself, Sabino Soria, Delfina Groizard, Chiquito Riquelme and Leandro Menendez.

Now 70 years old, Palomar has acted in two other films since he was freed in 2008 after spending 35 years across all the penitentiaries in Argentina. He has starred in “Planta permanente” by Ezequiel Radusky and Rosselli’s “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed,” Un Puma producer Jerónimo Quevedo told Variety.  “Hard Boiled School’ is based on him but the story is fictitious,” he said.

“By re-utilizing old film fragments to depict the past, ‘Hard-Boiled School’ seeks to become a reference palimpsest: the careful mise-en-scene of the planning and execution of a bank heist, a classic buddy movie, Pedro Palomar’s biography and a documentary of its own production,” Rosselli explained.

The project is backed by the Argentine film institute INCAA, the Hubert Bals Fund and Mecenazgo (Buenos Aires City Patronage Law).

Based in Buenos Aires, Un Puma was founded by Victoria Marotta and Quevedo who have produced a range of critically acclaimed features and short films. Recent works include “About Thirties” by Martín Shanly, premiered at Berlinale; Locarno-premiered “The Human Surge 3” by Eduardo Williams and “The Practice” by Martín Rejtman, which debuted at the San Sebastián Film Festival.

“Hard Boiled School” is slated to start principal photography in July 2025.

The 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival runs Sept. 20-28.