EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Lluís Quílez, best known for directing the buzzy Netflix crime drama Below Zero, will direct Elegido, a social thriller inspired by a set of notorious race riots in El Ejido, southern Spain, in 2000.
Produced by Frank Ariza’s AF production company (Sorry, Baby), the film follows Mishal, a 40-year-old Arab migrant who has just arrived in Spain seeking work. The murder of two farm workers at the hands of one of their undocumented employees, followed days later by the death of a local young woman, triggers an unprecedented wave of violence in the streets of El Ejido. For three days, local farm workers take over the town under a rule of mob justice, sealing off the area and preventing police intervention as they take matters into their own hands. Amid the chaos, Mishal is mistaken for the girl’s killer and subjected to a brutal public lynching, while authorities struggle to regain control and restore peace.
The film takes direct inspiration from the real-life race riots in El Ejido in 2000 in the province of Almería. Triggered by the stabbing death of a Spanish woman and the arrest of a young Moroccan man that the Spanish authorities termed “mentally disturbed,” the El Ejido incident quickly escalated into widespread violence targeting the town’s large Moroccan community. Properties were set afire, and police clashed with rioters. The events were widely described at the time as among the most severe instances of racially motivated violence in contemporary Spanish history.
“This real-life starting point allowed me to craft a story based on the classic theme of the ‘wrongly accused’ while exploring issues such as scapegoating, immigration, working conditions in southern Spain’s greenhouses, prejudice, the limits of law and justice, racism, class struggle, and migration,” Quílez said in a statement.
“This is a story of urgent relevance: the recent events in Torre Pacheco prove that these wounds are still open and must be confronted head-on.”
Quílez is a Barcelona-born filmmaker. His credits include Out of the Dark (2015), Below Zero (2021), and the series Iron Reign for Netflix. Elegido will shoot in 2026.
