Filming of “Escobar” to start in October in Colombia

Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz will start next October 24 in Colombia filming “Escobar”, a film by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, about the notorious Colombian drug lord.

The film focuses on the rise and fall of the billionaire drug trafficker who is accused of over a thousand murders, and also his relationship between 1982 and 1987 with journalist and popular television presenter Virginia Vallejo.

Penelope Cruz will play the journalist and her reallife partner Bardem will play Pablo Escobar (19491993) in this film based on the book “Loving Pablo, hating Escobar,” written by Vallejo herself.

In the book she described Escobar’s ties “with political leaders, presidents, ministers, military and guerrillas.”

Vallejo, 67, lives in exile in Miami in the United States after leaving Colombia following her denunciation of the complicity of important politicians with drug trafficking, among which she cited former presidents such as Alvaro Uribe, Alfonso Lopez Michelsen and Ernesto Samper.