EXCLUSIVE: Avatar Entertainment has taken worldwide rights to the Vadhir Derbez and Elyfer Torres erotic thriller SVGS and is shopping them at the Cannes Market.
The Jorge Xolalpa-written and directed film, pronounced ‘Savages,’ follows a young couple who on the night of celebrating their anniversary, decide to test the strength of their relationship and push each other to their mental and physical limits. What was supposed to be a romantic night takes a deadly turn.
Derbez recently starred in The Seventh Day alongside Guy Pearce, as Deadline revealed in 2020, and has in the past year completed shooting for Jesse Johnson’s White Elephant starring Bruce Willis and John Malkovich and “SVGS” and shot a pilot for HBO Max’s unscripted television series From Sloppy to Papi.
Torres was in Telemundo telenovela in Betty en NY and is currently starring in Netflix’s Guerra de Vecinos. She recently wrapped an untitled thriller, produced by Gary and Julie Auerbach.
Xolalpa shot the film, which is his sixth, over six days from within his own home. “I’ve always wanted to do a single-location, one-take film. Although I didn’t come close to that with SVGS, we do open the film with a 20-page single take shot,” he said. “We shot 33 pages on our first day.”
Val Valdez and Sara Seligman produced the film, which comes from Xolalpa’s Mighty Aphrodite Pictures.
Derbez and Torres are represented by UTA. Xolalpa and Torres are managed by Val Valdez at Los Angeles and London-based management and production company Avatar. Derbez is managed by Larry Robinson, also at Avatar.
