On September 9, exactly a month after his 52nd Birthday last August 9, Grammy Award winning musicia Juanes will be walking on the red carpet at the Toronto Film Festival World Premiere of “Pimpinero: Blood and Oil”, the fourth feature of Colombian director Andrés Baiz (”Narcos”; “Griselda”) which also marks Juanes official acting debut in a feature-length film.
The film will arrive on Prime Video later this year takes place in the treacherous desert along the Colombia-Venezuela border where gasoline smugglers known as “pimpineros” risk their lives transporting illegal fuel across the harsh landscape.
Set as an action-adventure drama, the story reminds us of the sequel of the box office classic hit “The Road Warrior” from the “Mad Max “ saga, it stars Juanes as Moisés, the older of three brothers entangled in this perilous trade, a plot that thickens when the youngest of the clan, Juan (played by Mexican actor Alejandro Speitzer, who starred alongside RBD singer and actress Maite Perroni in Netflix Series “Oscuro deseo”) is forced to work for a sinister rival and the underbelly of the business is laid bare with tragic consequences. The second brother is played by Cuban actor Alberto Guerra, who most recently appeared in Emmy nominated series “Griselda”, also directed by Baiz.
“´Pimpinero´is about geographical and physical borders, but above all about ethical, moral and emotional borders”, Baiz shared in a statement, according to “Remezcla”. “The result is an exciting film, full of beauty, truth and a lot of adrenaline. I look forward to sharing it with the public”.
According to Rolling Stone, the film is Juanes´non musical performance of this magnitude, though it´s his first exploration of the industry. In 2014 he appeared as Elliot Lantana in one episode of “Jane the Virgin” and in 2017 he composed the original score, “Lay Your Hands on Me,” for the animated film “Ferdinand” and voiced the character Juan. That same year he worked with director Kacho López Mari on the visual album “Mis Planes son Amarte”. “I thought it would be cool to (not) be the singer, but to play a character”, Juanes told Miami News Times at the time. “I had always liked the idea of acting, but I had never tried, and I thought I could”.