Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, newly minted with well-deserved Oscars, now turn their attention to their next project, a movie about the triple frontera, the tri-border area between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina that's a node of movement between the three countries. While popular imagination sets Ciudad del Este, Paraguay's city at this border, as the weak and corrupt link, the reality is much more interconnected, with much of the movement across the border (and certainly the compraturistas who cross the Friendship Bridge for day shopping trips) performed by Brazilians themselves (and the vast majority do not live in Foz do Iguaçu, the Brazilian city across the river).

Miami Vice also filmed in Ciudad del Este... their legacy lives on in a wooden ramshackle car repair shop (taller) named after them, on Carlos Antonio Lopez (but no one in CdE knows the names of the streets).

Now the Paraguayan press has caught wind of the new movie project, Triple Frontier (Guerra al terror). Already sadly familiar with serving as a setting for international dramas (the fame of the border arises from more than just the smuggling that goes on there, but from the presence of Lebanese and Taiwanese communities, which have been accused of links to organized crime and terror--a charge they vigorously repudiate), Paraguayans seem to be responding with a "meh" or "I wish someone would make a movie about the War of the Triple Alliance (1865-70) instead."

The Sundance channel has announced its line-up for the next year and it looks like the Triple Frontera--the border zone between Ciudad del Este, Foz do Iguaçu, and Puerto Iguazu (Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, respectively) where I've lived and researched--is becoming an increasingly popular go-to setting for exotic baddies.

Here's the heart of the announcement:

• TRIPLE CROSSING – a geopolitical crime drama set in a lawless South American city that borders Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Produced by John Malkovich’s Mr. Mudd (Juno, The Dancer Upstairs).

As for realism and knowledge of the site... I'll wait until I actually see it to figure out whether they just used their imagination or actually sent someone to scout out the border zone for verisimilitude. One interesting give-away: the cities at this border use four currencies for common exchange, interchangeably--Guaraníes, Reais, Pesos, and Dollars.

Annamaria Alfieri will be available for book signing and wonderful conversation at the Main Library in Wellesley, MA tomorrow. Her new book, City of Silver, is about a murder at Potosí and is already garnering praise. I had the good fortune to meet her today at the New York Public Library--she's already working on her next novel... one about Paraguay.