Moisés Sepúlveda recognizes a weakness for films with a financial accent. mentions Wall Street (1987), The price of greed (2011), The wolf of Wall Street (2013) and The big bet (2015) as some of his favorite films in that territory. All, to different degrees, have been references during the creation of his next film project: let it all enda feature film inspired by the La Polar case, the scandal unleashed by the fraudulent system that the department store applied with its customers for several years.
“The film is inspired by the mechanism of fraud, but also by some aspects of the particular case,” says the national filmmaker. Before the script took its current form, which he hopes to shoot between October and November of this year, he imagined several possibilities, such as telling the story from the perspective of an investigator who approaches the case or even from a multiple perspective.
“Towards the end we decided that the most interesting point of view to tell what caught my attention about the historical episode is that of the managers. There we created a fictitious company, which in the film is called El Solar.“, details about the plot, which will star the actress Paulina García.
“In fiction, not real history, it is a woman who works in store management who discovers that a scam is happening in the call center. She reports her and they fire her, but then she realizes that the information she has about her gives her power. So she manages to be invited to be part of this scam and she realizes that the magnitude is greater and even the highest managers are involved.”
“There is a moral plot, with a character who goes from being correct, in line with society, to losing all modesty when scamming. But it also has suspense components, with characters who begin to fear for their freedom, for their family, for their well-being. It is a very dizzying film. In that sense, It’s a bit of a cousin The wolf of Wall Street or of Wall Streetby Oliver Stonewhich are very rhythmic, very urgent financial thrillers.”
Just as García’s role is inspired by María Isabel Farah, former administration manager of La Polar, the same happens with the roles that Francisco Melo and Benjamín Vicuña will play. The first takes as reference Pablo Alcalde, former president and former general manager, and the second does the same with Julián Moreno, the former manager of Financial Products.
Much of the action of let it all end It will take place in the offices of the plot company. “There is a bit of private life in fiction, but is mainly a story that takes place in the aisles of this fictional store”.
“The story directly addresses how this mechanism of fraud is created, how it escalates for years and explodes to the point that it becomes irreversible, ending with several of them facing justice and many others not facing it,” maintains the director of The illiterate (2013) and Big avenue (2021), and founding partner of Juntos Films.
After several years in development, the project was awarded the Audiovisual Fund – awarded by the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage – before the arrival of the pandemic. It also added international contributions (Mexico, Spain, Germany). However, The amount raised does not yet cover the budget of the feature film.
Aiming to make up that difference, which he estimates at 20% of the total, Sepúlveda and his team decided to open a crowdfunding campaign (through the Catapultame.cl site) where different rewards are offered depending on the amount you wish to contribute.
“By Chilean standards, it is more expensive than the average. It is a film that stages a complete company, with many extras, with art direction. “It has great production value,” he highlights, along with specifying that they intend to build the company in studios. “The visuality is not naturalistic or austere, but rather expressionistic and represents the emotional state of the characters. I am interested in representing the intoxicated state of power and the loss of shame”.
This online event will last until June 8 and, according to his view, will even influence the premiere, which he hopes will be in 2025. “These types of campaigns have a double virtue: they can allow the film to be partially or totally financed, but they also allow that is projected towards the future, towards distribution.”
“People over 35 years of age have a high level of knowledge of the case. On the other hand, when you talk to younger people you immediately think of this issue of counterfeit clothing. I think that confusion can even be positive. to finally talk about business corruption, which is the topic that the film addresses”, he concludes.
