Bendita Film Sales Snags Norma Vila’s Sitges Competition Title ‘Carapace’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Bendita Film Sales has acquired international rights to Norma Vila’s psychological horror thriller “Salitre” (“Carapace”) ahead of its premiere at the Sitges Film Festival’s Fantàstic In-Competition Selection.

Vila’s debut feature stars Nagore Aranburu, star of Series Mania top laureate “Querer” and winner of this year’s supporting actress Goya Award for “Sundays,” and Haizea Carneros (“Sacamantecas”) as a mother and daughter whose relationship grows increasingly tense.

In “Salitre,” when her teenage daughter Nerea decides to leave home to study, Maite is gripped by despair. For Maite, her daughter’s departure is more than a separation: it threatens to destroy the world she has built with her.

As Nerea prepares to leave, Maite’s fear begins to contaminate everything. Something seems to spread throughout the house, seeping into the intimacy they share and giving shape to what Maite cannot put into words.

Soon, Maite cuts herself off from the world and becomes obsessed with keeping her daughter at home, turning care into control and love into possession. As her obsession threatens to destroy what she loves most, Maite must confront the monster that has awakened within her: let her daughter go, or hold on to her and lose her forever.

While “Carapace” may be Vila’s first feature, the director has impressed with her acclaimed previous works, winning twice the Syfy Award for best Spanish short at the San Sebastián Horror and Fantasy Film Festival: in 2016 for “Jules D.” and in 2019 for “El fin de todas las cosas.”

“What drew us to ‘Carapace’ is the way Norma Vila lets the horror take hold of something painfully recognizable: a mother who cannot bear to see her daughter leave,” explained Luis Renart, head of Bendita Film Sales. “Something you can’t quite name creeps into the closeness between them and starts to spread, but the film never stops being about two people who love each other. It’s exactly the kind of genre cinema we love: singular, uncompromising, and made by a filmmaker with a voice of her own. We’re taking it to Sitges expecting genre audiences to embrace it, and we don’t think they’ll be the only ones.”

A largely Basque production, “Carapace” is produced by Bilbao-based Ipuin Kontalaria and Euskadi Movie along with Pris&Batty Films, Bondi Stories and Festival Films in association with broadcasters EITB and RTVE.  

“We’re thrilled to partner with Bendita Film Sales, whose passion and international reach make them the ideal team to bring ‘Carapace’ to audiences worldwide,” added producer Eduardo Carneros of Euskadi Movie. “We’re especially excited to launch the film with its world premiere at Sitges and hope this will be the beginning of a strong international journey for a film we believe is both distinctive and deeply cinematic.”

Shot on location in the northern region of Biskaia and neighboring Cantabria, the €2.5 million ($2.9 million) production was supported by the Basque government, the Bizkaia Tax Incentive and Comunidad de Madrid.

The Sitges Film Festival runs Oct. 8-18.