Variety reports that Antonio Banderas (‘Haywire,’ ‘Puss in Boots’) is to play influential Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in Carlos Saura's upcoming biopic ‘33 Dias’ (‘33 Days’).
Penned by Saura, the film follows the painter's emotional turmoil as he worked on masterpiece ‘Guernica,’ and how it proved near salvation for Picasso at a moment of personal crisis. It will also focus on his relationship with his lover, French artist Dora Maar.
The film’s title refers to the time the artist spent on the mural, which captured his reaction to the destruction of Basque town of Guernica in 1937 by the Nazi Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Banderas said, "[Picasso] is a character that has pursued me for a long time and I always rejected. He deserves a lot of respect because I am from Malaga, and I was born four blocks from where he was born."
Saura's €6 million French and Spanish language feature will shoot next summer in Paris and Guernica.