'The Chosen' Film On Leon Trotsky's Assassination Wraps Filming In Mexico City

Directed by Antonio Chavarrias, “The Chosen” (“El Elegido”) film about Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky's famous assassination in Mexico in 1940 will focus on the assassin, Ramon Mercader, a Spanish Soviet agent who killed the Marxist with an ice pick. Its shooting began last April 24 in the boroughs of Xochimilco and Coyoacán in Mexico City and is now coming to an end. The cast includes Mexican actor Alfonso Herrera who will play Mercader, British actor Henry Goodman will play Trostky and British actress Hannah Murray will play Mercader’s American love interest, British actress Julian Sands, Spanish actress Elvira Minguez, Mexican actor Alejandro Calva and French actor Brontis Jodorowsky.

Chavarrias told the Associated Press that the story is a juicy one since it’s a story of betrayal. “He betrays someone who has delivered her body and soul to him,” said the director about Mercader and his love interest. “That's really suggestive. It adds complexity to the plot,” Chavarrias continued. Actor Emilio Echevarría, who portrays the Mexican colonel in charge of Trotsky's guard, says he doesn’t think the Mexican police was at fault for the murder, “Trotsky even had his own bodyguards."

As the film wraps up its shooting in Mexico, the cast and crew are headed to their next location in Barcelona, Spain where they will film scenes set in Spain, France and New York, for the next two weeks. The film budgeted at $7.8MM is set to premiere in 2016, making it the first movie about Trostky and Mercader, in what director Antonio Chavarrias calls “a fascinating tale.”