Netflix has announced that the upcoming family drama ROMA from Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón will get a limited theatrical release of 100 theaters domestically and 500 worldwide around its debut on the service on December 14.
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ROMA is the most personal project to date from Academy Award-winning director and writer, which chronicles a turbulent year in the lives of a middle-class family in 1970s Mexico City. Cuarón, inspired by the women from his childhood, delivers an artful ode to the matriarchy that shaped his world.
A vivid portrayal of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil, the film follows a young domestic worker Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) from Mixteco heritage descent and her co-worker Adela (Nancy García), also Mixteca, who work for a small family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma. Mother of four, Sofia (Marina de Tavira), copes with the extended absence of her husband, Cleo faces her own devastating news that threatens to distract her from caring for Sofia’s children, whom she loves as her own. While trying to construct a new sense of love and solidarity in a context of a social hierarchy where class and race are perversely intertwined, Cleo and Sofia quietly wrestle with changes infiltrating the family home in a country facing confrontation between a government-backed militia and student demonstrators.
“We love this film and our goal is to bring this cinematic experience to audiences everywhere, and our theatrical plan, combined with the reach of our service, has made ROMA an event film and cultural moment,” Scott Stuber, head of Netflix’s film group, said in a statement. “ROMA has played in festivals all over the world and we’re expanding our theatrical engagements, not only in major markets, but also in places like Honduras, South Africa, and Iceland. When the film premieres on December 14, we will be in 600 theaters worldwide.”
The film originally had a limited release in Mexico and the United States on November 21, selling out theaters in New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City, along with international theaters including London and Toronto.
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“Alfonso and everyone at Participant believe strongly in the theatrical experience,” said David Linde, CEO of Participant Media. “Choice and increased audience diversity around the world are also very important, and this incredible combination of the two worlds is something very exciting.”
Filmed in luminous black and white, ROMA is an intimate, gut-wrenching and ultimately life-affirming portrait of the ways, small and large, one family maintains its balance in a time of personal, social and political strife.
ROMA will arrive on Netflix on December 4. The feature is produced by Esperanto Filmoj and Participant Media.
