Chile’s Matias Bize, winner of the Spanish Academy Goya Award for “The Life of Fish,” returns with the drama “Last Stand” (“Aqui Me Bajo Yo”) starring “El Conde” and “The Club” actor Jaime Bader, one of Chile’s longest-serving actors on screen.
The project is the first fiction feature by Santiago-based Cubho Audiovisual and will make its market debut at the 9th Málaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (MAFF), part of the Málaga Film Festival, to be held from March 9th to 13th.
Founded in Santiago in 2020 by Isidora Fajardo, Pablo Cutulfo, Raimundo Bastidas and Nicolas Hooper H., Kubo produces. The film has been delayed in development and is aiming to shoot in August 2026 for release in 2027.
Based on the 2025 Chilean stage play by playwright and actor Elena Muñoz, “The Last Stand” unfolds on a stormy night. A grandfather announces his decision to end his life “by his own judgment” and is forced to have an uneasy reunion with his estranged son and granddaughter. Resentment and guilt collide with the possibility of reconciliation as the trio confronts the long-buried grief of the death of their “perfect” son.
The script was adapted by Muñoz, Raimundo and Milena Bastidas, who previously worked on the Amazon series Sin Frenos.
“We have been working on an adaptation that does justice to the play. We are a very close-knit team and, as is often the case with our group, we have been lucky enough to work together on several scripted projects, from series to TV dramas. We have worked on an adaptation that does justice to the play. In this case, it happens very organically because it’s a film that revolves around three of us, a multigenerational family (grandfather, father, mother and granddaughter),” explained Raimundo and Milena Bastidas.
This project marks a new thematic focus for Biz, whose chamber plays often compress the action into strictly demarcated spaces, such as In Bed and The Punishment.
“In my previous films, I’ve talked about falling in love, breakups, second chances, childhood, raising children, but I’ve never talked about the end of life. That’s the main motivation for doing this project,” Bize said.
Badel, who is in his 90s and won Chile’s National Art Prize in 2025, will co-star with Rodrigo Bastidas and Milena Bastidas.
The production will be led by Nicholas Hooper H, who is the executive producer of Maite Alberdi’s “Eternal Memory”. The film won the Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
“Cuho Audiovisual’s strategy this year is to secure private funding for film production and move to minority co-productions with Argentina, Spain and Germany for post-production and distribution,” Hooper said.
Bize said the project will follow a stripped-down production model similar to earlier films in his career. “Ultimately, it’s about focusing the story in both time and space. I like working on films where the energy is focused on great writing, great performances, and stripping away all the extraneous elements to focus on the heart of the story.”
