Eva Longoria and Eugenio Derbez have started filming Marcelo en el mundo real, a new feature directed by Lucía Puenzo and already in production. The project, backed by Zeta Studios and Elefantec Global, is based on the novel by Francisco X. Stork and brings the two stars into a story about a young person with autism trying to find a place in society.
The film is now shooting in Uruguay and Boston, a split that suggests a production moving between different settings rather than one fixed backdrop. That matters because the story centers on a young person leaving special education and moving toward the conventional job market, a transition Puenzo said is rarely captured on screen even though it sits between childhood and full independence.
Puenzo said Marcelo experiences the world differently, and that perspective is meant to push viewers to rethink what they call normal. That gives the film its edge: it is being presented as universal, but its core is a very specific stage of life that cinema rarely gives sustained attention to. The cast also includes Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Mathew Borrero and Ema Giménez Zapiola, widening a production that has clearly been assembled at scale.
Antonio Asensio said Marcelo crosses borders because of the universality of the story and the talent of artists such as Longoria and Derbez. José “Pepe” Bastón said the project spent six years in development before reaching production, and that it is now where he wanted it to be, with Lucía in charge and a cast of this size behind it. Puenzo’s track record also carries weight here: her debut, XXY, won the Gran Premio de la Semana de la Crítica del Festival de Cannes.
What comes next is straightforward but consequential. Filming is already under way, and the question now is how the finished film will balance its broad emotional reach with the very specific reality at its center. For Longoria and Derbez, the answer will arrive not in the announcement, but in the roles they play once the cameras stop rolling.
