Bilingual thriller produced for under $100,000 shoots entirely in Chicago area this month

“To Kill a Killer” director Ricardo Islas and DP Joe Passarelli on location in Indiana.

Uruguayan horror director Ricardo Islas has a distinctive strategy to reach both Anglo and Latino audiences: his next film, “To Kill a Killer,” will shoot all its scenes in both English and Spanish.

“What’s most exciting about this is that after we shoot a scene in one language, we’ll turn around and do it again in the other language,” said producer Diana Romero. “All the actors are bilingual. We just need to figure out how the script supervisor is going to handle it.”

Executive producer Salomon Carmona stars as a Mexican hit man who brings his wife (local actor Lyndsey Jimenez) and child to Chicago to escape his former life, only to find that life catching up with him. Mexican star Jorge Reynoso plays the serial killer who is Carmona’s last intended target.

Carmona, who has acted in Mexican film and is now a Chicago-based distributor and promoter of Latin music, is financing the less-than-$100,000 16mm feature.

“Because of the budget we were going to shoot in DV,” Romero said, “but in Mexico there is still the perception that for your work to be professional, it has to be done on film.”

The filmmakers plan a theatrical release in Mexico and a video release in the United States, with prospects for distribution in other Latin American countries.

“The film has recognizable Mexican talent, and an across-the-board appeal,” Romero said. “It’s a great story with a lot of fun twists, and for horror fans there’s a lot of blood and gore and effects.”

“To Kill a Killer” is set to shoot entirely in the Chicago area, beginning in mid-November, when an Indiana cornfield will stand in for the deserted Mexican landscape. “The corn hasn’t been harvested yet, so as long as we don’t show any trees and it doesn’t snow on us, we should be able to pull it off,” Romero said. “We’re going to use a rust filter like they used in ?Traffic’ to get that glowing orangey look. The original idea was to shoot the Mexican scenes in Texas, but if we can do this we can save that money.”

Romero came on a few weeks ago to replace another producer who left the project. She and Islas have been working together on Romero’s I-Media Entertainment venture. I-Media is developing television series for a direct-to-video market, to be funded entirely by advertising and distributed for free at advertisers’ retail outlets. “This is something that hasn’t been done yet and I want to be the first one to do it,” Romero said.

Romero started I-Media after financing fell through in July on “Ballpark,” an HD pilot she was producing. “Ballpark,” now re-titled “Windy Field,” is one of the first two series I-Media is developing, along with “Macumba,” a bilingual show about an immigrant who turns to fortune telling to survive, only to discover a genuine ability to commune with spirits.

Reach Romero at 312/654-0684. ? by Ed M. Koziarski, edk@homesickblues.com.