A GRAYLING NEVER DIES

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A GRAYLING NEVER DIES

LA GRINIL

By Ricardo PREVE

ESTO DEL CINE SRL - as PROD

Historical - Development 2022

English bandit woman Helen Greenhill led a life of crime, violence, and passion in Patagonia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, until she was killed by Argentine police in a shootout in 1915.

Festivals
& Awards

Prisma Independent Film Awards 2019

Official Selection

CKF International Film Festival 2019

Winner - Best Script - February 2019

South Europe International Film Festival 2019

Official Selection - Screenplay Competition

American Screenwriters Conference 2019

Official Selection

- Year of production
- 2022
- Genres
- Historical, Western, Action/Adventure
- Countries
- ARGENTINA
- Languages
- ENGLISH, SPANISH-ARGENTINE
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 100 mn
- Director(s)
- Ricardo PREVE
- Writer(s)
- Ricardo PREVE
- Producer(s)
- Ricardo PREVE (Esto del Cine SRL)
- Synopsis
- Helen as a sweet child, and her father, fish for grayling in the River Wharfe in Yorkshire, near where she was born in 1874. But her idyllic childhood days end when she and her 10 younger siblings move to Patagonia, as her family is invited by the Chilenean government to settle there. She is married at 19 to a man twenty years older, Manuel Astete. Her husband takes her to Argentina, where Helen gives birth to two sons.
  Helen does not take well to the rough treatment meted out to her by her husband, and she has him killed by a young lover. When her husband’s remains and crushed skull are found in a desert canyon, Helen endures a brief stint in jail, but upon her release she is married by the arresting sheriff to her lawyer, Martin Coria.
  Forced to send her two young sons to Buenos Aires with her sister Henrietta, Helen and her husband move to a new corner of Patagonia, and set up a general-goods store as a front for their criminal activities. A young man of shifting allegiances becomes their accomplice, and part-time bartender, more appreciated by Helen than by her severe husband.
  Helen shows off her prowess as an expert shooter and horse-woman in an encounter with two Turkish store keepers whom she kills, and in robbing a businessman who tries to collect a debt from them.
  A visit to a rich English widow’s ranch gives Helen and Martin a chance to not only make off with a substantial herd of sheep, but also to take from the widow a sometimes mute, Uruguayan dwarf servant who will accompany Helen until her death.
  Helen and Martin travel to Buenos Aires to bring back Helen’s children to Patagonia, but the cold weather, and exposure to city illnesses, ends Martin’s life. Helen must leave the children in Buenos Aires, and she returns to Patagonia alone.
  The company of the dwarf, and the young bartender, is not sufficient to console her for the loss of Martin, so she ends up having a sexual relationship with a policeman, Felix Valenciano, who is a jealous and violent man.
  Meeting a young gaucho, whom she nicknames Martincho, during a cattle drive, Helen hopes that she has again found a man to find happiness with.
  A police attack on Helen and Martincho instigated by Valenciano results in the death of the young bartender, but also in the capture of two policemen, whom Helen forces to do domestic chores dressed in her own clothes, and supervised by the dwarf.
  Feeling the pressure from the authorities, Helen and Martincho decide to flee further south in Patagonia, taking with them only the dwarf, and a few sheep. Simultaneously, the earth trembles as a volcanic eruption in the Andes sends grey ashes falling over the land.
  Ambushed by Valenciano, Martincho reveals that he is a coward as he abandons Helen, who fires back at the police in spite of being wounded. An attempt by the dwarf to distract the police’s attention from Helen is unsuccessful, and Helen and Valenciano meet in a final, fateful encounter, as the volcanic ashes cover the Patagonian landscape.
  We see Helen as a child, and her father, again fishing for grayling in the River Wharfe in Yorkshire, as we end the story of Helen Greenhill, the English bandit woman of Patagonia.
- Beginning of shooting
- Mar 02, 2020
- End of shooting
- May 29, 2020