Prime Video released the first-look image at the studio’s new film, Cassandro, eponymously titled after the Liberace of Lucha Libre, who will be played by Golden Globe-award-winning actor Gael García Bernal (Werewolf by Night, Y Tu Mamá También, Mozart in the Jungle).
Directed by Roger Ross Williams, an independent filmmaker and the first Black director to win an Academy Award with his short film Music by Prudence, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009, Cassandro tells the true story of “Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, Texas, who rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the ‘Liberace of Lucha Libre.’ In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world but also his own life,” reads the official film description. In addition to starring Bernal as Cassandro, the film will also star Roberta Colindrez, Perla De La Rosa, Joaquín Cosío, and Raúl Castillo in undisclosed roles.
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Armendáriz quit school at 15 to begin training to become a Luche Libre, beginning his career in 1988 under the mask of Mister Romano. However, the performer eventually abandoned that ring name for fame as a different character, Cassandro, from a Tijuana brothel keeper Cassandra. Under the ring name Cassandro, Armendáriz worked as an exótico (a wrestler who performs in drag) for several Independent Mexican luchador promotions. After attempting suicide, Armendáriz went on to become the NWA World Welterweight and UWA World Lightweight Champion, becoming the first exótico in history to hold the title.
The wrestler was previously the subject of a documentary in 2018, Cassandro the Exotico! by Marie Losier, who has also directed 2019’s Felix in Wonderland! with electronic musician Felix Kubin, and 2011’s The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, which is about psychics.
Roger Ross Williams Wrote Cassandro
HBO
Cassandro is Williams’s feature-length directorial debut. Williams also co-wrote the script with the help of David Teague (Cutie and the Boxer) and Julián Herbert (Satelite). Todd Black, Gerardo Gatica, Julie Goldman, David Bloomfield, and Ted Hope will produce.
“As a filmmaker, my own life experience has inspired my passion to tell inspirational stories about outsiders and uplift the voices of people we don’t normally see on screen. The true story of Cassandro, Saúl Armendáriz, was one I knew I wanted to tell from the moment I met him. I look forward to being able to bring Saúl’s story to a wide audience,” Williams told Deadline. Cassandro is expected to arrive on Prime Video sometime in 2023.
