Launched at the Cannes Film Festival, the ambitious European co-production with Denmark’s Adomeit Film and Italy’s Dugong Films, is based on a script by top Italian writer Maurizio Braucci, (Gomorrah, Martin Eden), co-written with Palestinian writer Suha Arraf (Lemon Tree).

Based on a true story, it’s a drama about an Eritrean refugee girl who is washed ashore in Libya, and with time, becomes one of the most notorious human smugglers with deep ties to the Italian Mafia. Known as ‘Madame Luna’, her fate suddenly switches with Libya’s new political situation, forcing her to blend in the refugee wave to Italy. Along the way, she meets the young Eli (16), who reminds her of her younger self.

The epic feature drama will be the first Swedish project in a decade for Swedish director of Chilean origin Daniel Espinosa, whose mega success with the film Easy Money starring Joel Kinnaman, got him a ticket to Hollywood. After Safe House (2012) with Denzel Washington, Child 44 (2015) starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Life (2017) starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, and the upcoming Marvel movie Morbius starring Jared Leto, Espinosa said he is looking forward to going back to his roots, with a more politically engaged realistic drama.

The project won the Eurimages co-production development award at the Rome Film festival’s MIA Market as well as the Apulia Film Commission Award in 2017.

We sat at the Scandinavian Terrace 55 la Croisette with Espinosa and producer David Herdies of Momento Film, also present in Cannes with the Swedish co-production Amparo by Simón Mesa Soto, selected at the Critics Week.

How did the two of you get together for Madame Luna?
David Herdies: Documentary director Binyam Berhane first came up with the idea, based on a true story. We started developing it as a documentary, but then switched to fiction to have more freedom with the storytelling, then I started looking for the right fiction director. I knew of Daniel’s work and felt his style and distinctiveness as a director would perfectly match the story. We met, smoked a lot of cigarettes and we clicked. That was 4 years ago.

Daniel Espinosa: At the time, Suha Arraf was the sole writer. She has brought the great insight into Madame Luna’s persona, how it is to be a refugee and a woman. She has a poetic tone, while my work is more realistic and action-driven. I spoke to David and said it would be great to get an extra writer who could bring in this tone. This is where David showed his unique talent as a producer. Most Swedish producers think local, or Nordic, but then David came up with a great idea. He said: why don’t we bring in Gomorrah’s writer Maurizio Braucci! I said sure! But how? David said don’t worry. We’ll find a way. We did connect with Maurizio who re-shaped the story and developed it with Suha.

What are the main themes?
DE: For me, it’s about the perpetrator who becomes a victim. The idea of portraying a human being as close to a cliché like ‘evil’, made the story all the more interesting. The notion of the ‘noble human being’ is a bourgeois concept. Only middle-upper class people can allow themselves to be good. If you come from tougher circumstances, you really have to rise from the gaps of hell and morality is often central.

In the film, Madame Luna becomes human, not out of intimate conviction, but out of survival. As a teenager she arrives in Libya as a refugee, makes a career as human trafficker to survive, turning into Madame Luna, wanted for the death of 1,200 people. Then when Libya falls, the walls she had built to become Madame Luna, slowly come crumbling down. How much punishment does she have to take to be forgiven, if she can be forgiven, or does she have to sacrifice herself? This is the core of the story.

What is your vision for the style of Madame Luna?
DE: The movie will rely on its realism. We want it to have a ‘Wisemanesque’ treatment. Frederick Wiseman’s films deal with systems, how those influence human behaviour. Here, it’s also about systems. How do you find a boat to cross the Mediterranean, how many people can be in the boat, what happens when you arrive, how does the refugee centre work?

Do you already know who will be in the cast?
DE: I will use the same casting technique that I used for Easy Money.

When I did Easy Money, there had never been a gangster movie in Sweden done from the inside. I felt realism, personal systems were crucial. Besides the lead actor Joel Kinnaman, I cast amateurs for most other roles, gathering criminals from different ages that I interviewed. Each amateur was asked to portray a fictitious person, but all the stories told were true and in Easy Money, all the long monologues are based on real stories. The amateurs told me how to tell the story. With Madame Luna, I will go to a refugee centre to do the casting. I will hire a translator, which I didn’t need for Easy Money.

When do you plan to start shooting?
DE: Hopefully the casting will be in place early 2022 and we’ll be able to shoot in the spring 2022.

What locations will you use?
DH: It will be shot mostly in Italy, with some parts either in Tunisia or Morocco, plus in a water tank in Malta.

David where are you on the production side and what’s the budget?
DH: We’re estimating the film to have a € 6 million budget. We will make it as a major European co-production, where we can access as much soft money as possible, then we’ll bring in some equity. For now, we have development support from the Swedish Film Institute, and we'll soon apply for production support. We also received Creative Media support, an Eurimages Co-production Development Award and Apulia Film Commission Award already in 2017. Nordisk Film is on board, and we have Denmark’s Adomeit Film and Marco Alessi of Dugong Films in Italy as co-producers.
In Cannes we’re meeting with sales agents. The combination of Daniel [Espinosa] and Maurizio [Braucci] plus Suha [Arraf] as co-writer makes it a very attractive package.

Daniel how have you been navigating Covid-19?
DE: I shot the Marvel movie Morbius before covid started. I’ve been in post. When covid hit, I was in LA in lockdown. Then after two months of working there, I called Marvel and said I’d rather stay in Sweden. I therefore finished the film from Stockholm. It will come out in February 2022. It’s a studio movie, a totally different genre and ball game.

What did you learn from working in the Hollywood system the last decade?
DE: You work with a much bigger crew. Thanks to that experience, I would say that my craft has been strengthened. I have been lucky to learn from different filmmaking systems, in Europe and in the US. Hollywood has some of the strongest actors, DoPs on the planet, That’s the virtue of America. The hardest is certainty. They want you to finish the movie before it’s done!

To the detriment of the final cut…
DE: Sometimes. It’s very different from Europe where the process of making a movie is almost more important. But there is something interesting about imagining the whole movie before it’s done. That experience in Hollywood has been very good and I will use it for Madame Luna.