When we asked Walter Mercado for his forecast on the possibility of a collaboration between amazing Latin artists Calle 13 and Rita Indiana, the stars said yes. We had Latin music in mind (can you imagine the epicness of a chorus going “Si tú le da’, yo le doy/Tú sabes, tú sabes, tú sabes que estás que estilla”?), but when at the end of his prediction Walter’s face twitched, and through a quarter-of-an-inch orifice in his mouth (the only thing he can manage right now) he told us, “A Residente y a Rita les deseo paz, y mucho, pero mucho cine,” we thought he was just high on Botox. It turns out that the trio is actually going all silver-screeny on us: Rita Indiana has just been hired to pen a script for an upcoming Calle 13 movie, along with Puerto Rican Noelia Quintero, who directed the “La hora de volvé” video. Talk about random.
According to Diario Libre, a Dominican daily, they’re expected to hand in a script before the summer. Regarding the plot, Quintero told us that “the guys [from Calle 13] picked a couple of premises, when it came to the characters, and we’ll be developing the script in full.” The team will be using the editing skills of Gab Coss, who worked on both Quintero’s La motora roja tiene que aparecer and on Rita Indiana’s music video.
Mind you, Indiana already has, among other things, a novel (La estrategia de Chochueca), a play (Puentes) and three Latin music bands (Casifull, Miti Miti and Los Misterios; four if you count Los Niños Envueltos), so adding the screenwriting credit to her resumé should be a piece of arepa. As a matter of fact, she just called the copyright office, because she’s legally slapping her name on the terms Multitasker, Renaissance Woman and Todóloga. And even if we’re bigger fans of her music than her writing, given her recent track record we’re holding high expectations for this project.
We can’t wait to see what an on-screen slap in the face by el reggaeton del futuro feels like. Walter says he wishes he could feel anything in his face again.