EL LOBO aka THE WOLF

Year: 2004
UK: Dogwoof Pictures
Cast: Eduardo Noriega, Jose Coronado, Patrick Bruel, Melanie Doutey, Silvia Abascal, Santiago Ramos, Jorge Sanz, Manuel Zarzo, Fernando Cayo, Juan Fernandez, Roger Pera, Jose Luis Garcia-Perez, Chema Munoz, Antonio Ferrera, Juan Polanco, Pau Cólera, Jacobo Dicenta, Joserra Buruaga Saturnino Garcia, Javier Tolosa, Hector Colome, Cristina Perales, Antonio Castro, Antonio Onetti, Alex O'Dogherty, Julio Velez, Antonio Cifo, Cesar Solar, Juan Matute, Pedro Ocana, Carmen Rossi, Ramon Camin, Amanda Marugan, Nuria Pasanau, Melchor Miralles, Jose Hervas, David Recuero, Juanjo Rodriguez, Arantxa Iglesias, Ana Calderón, Daniel Sanchez, Juan Hurtado, Julia Miralles, Claudia Torrente, Elena Munoz, Jacobo Miralles
Director: Miguel Courtois
Country: Spain
Language: Spanish (English subtitles)
UK: 123 mins
UK Certificate: 12 contains strong language and sex, and moderate violence
UK Release Date: 16 June 2006

Synopsis

Based on a true story. In the 70's, during the last stages of Franco's dictatorship, LOBO is about an infiltrator in the ETA terrorist group whose mission, in the early 1970's, brought down a fourth of its members.

LOBO is inspired by the life of Mikel Lejarza, AKA "Lobo" (Wolf), the Spanish secret agent who infiltrated ETA between 1973 and 1975. Lobo contributed to the fall of one quarter of the terrorist activists of the organisation, - including several Special Forces members and some top-level figures of the group. Lejarza's infiltration destabilised the terrorist organization at a time when its actions where becoming a perfect justification for the most conservative arm of the Franco regime to take full powers and stop the democratic process in Spain. The Lobo operation stopped terrorists' plans to escape from the prison they where held at and a campaign of blind attacks. These demonstrations of power to a dying dictatorship intended to provoke the army to ensure the action - repression - action spiral.

LOBO is the story of a man used and destroyed by the Spanish dictatorship secret services - who tried to get rid of him during the process. The Lobo operation was the most successful operation ever led by the Spanish police against ETA.

As a consequence, ETA sentenced Lejarza to death and covered the whole Basque country with search posters of the traitor. Lobo had to change his name and face and disappear without a trace. The memory of Lobo is so present to the ETA that its commando members always carry around a bullet bearing his name.