EL PLEITO 'PINTA' A LO GRANDE EN EU

Click here for the Spanish original!

The film version of Frida Kahlo has caused a series of lawsuits between main Hispanic stars of Hollywood: Salma Hayek and Jennifer Lopez. Both want to defend their project at all costs.

EFE. - Los Angeles. - The film version on the life of Frida Kahlo has opened a fight between main Hispanic stars of Hollywood: Jennifer Lopez is defending her project as much as Salma Hayek.

Even, Edward James Olmos participates in a third project, although for obvious reasons the person that he is going to incarnate is the one of Diego Rivera.

" An intense life as the one of Kahlo deserves more than one project ", assured Lopez, who has Luis Valdez as director and Francis Coppola as producer.

In the case of Hayek, although a confirmed director does not exist, the project produced by Miramax already has a script and intentions to begin filming in January.

" It is necessary to thank Madonna because of her passion for Frida and her interest in the project that caught the attention of the public who did not know who was this painter before", Hayek said.

Kahlo was the first woman who sold a painting to the Louvre Museum and at the moment is highest paid Hispanic painter in the auctions in the United States. She lived a stormy relation with Diego Riviera; she also suffered from a traffic accident that left her almost paralyzed and with chronic pains until her death, at the age of 47 years.

" I believe that Frida represents Mexico. Her body was broken, but heart was indestructible ", summarized Hayek.

To date, the painter has been immortalized in the Mexican film Frida, by Paul Leduc, and only appeared briefly in Cradle Will Rock, where she was interpreted by the actress Corina Katt, and Rubén Blades was in charge to impersonate Diego Rivera.
An attempt on the part of Valdez in 1990, with Raúl Julia as Rivera. The project died before beginning by lack of financing, to which the complaints of the Hispanic community were added because of casting Laura San Giacomo to give life to this great figure of Hispanic feminism.

" In Mexico they protect the memory of Diego and Frida because figures are keys and I believe that Madonna could not make her project because the ones who had the rights did not want to have her ", Hayek says.

At the present time, the potential that supposes that Hispanics are very interested in Cinema has caused that this increases its interest by the projects related to this community.

In this atmosphere the project of Hayek began to forge itself, that, according to the press of Hollywood, was offered to the Spanish producer Pedro Almodóvar, to Brazilian Walter Salles, Mexican Roberto Sneider and the Britan Jim Sheridan. None of them has accepted it at the moment.

In the case of Lopez and Hayek, it is not a surprise that both show interest in this biography, in spite of the little attractiveness of the physicist of the painter: according to Time magazine, Lopez looks for something more than her body to develop acting skills and Hayek needs a success at the boxoffice.

Whereas Lopez tries to go on distance to the Mexican assuring that she does not know much, Hayek prefers to emphasize the origins of the protagonist of The Cell remembering that is a New Yorker with a Puerto Rican family background.

" I would be calmer with Madonna interpreting Frida, because although she is not Mexican, she has always been admiring Frida´s work, not like other people who have only been interested when the painter is getting fashionable ", declared Hayek without mentioning names.

Copyright (2000) Efe