News

María José Rodríguez, a driver of Prime Video’s large success in Spain, has stepped down as Amazon Studios’ head of Spanish originals.

Announced Monday by Nicole Morganti, Amazon Studios head of local originals for Southern Europe, Rodríguez’s departure comes just a week after Prime Video unveiled its 2024 slate in Madrid, reviewing what it hailed as a “banner” first semester.

That included “Reina Roja” (“Red Queen”), greenlit by Rodríguez, which featured in the platform’s Top 10 most-watched titles internationally at launch, and singing competition show “Operación Triunfo,” brought to Amazon Studios by Rodríguez, becoming the most acquired Spanish Original in the history of Prime Video in Spain.

“María José’s impact on the Prime Video has been significant,” Morganti said Monday. “There is no greater demonstration of her vision than bringing the Culpables trilogy to life for customers, beginning with ‘Culpa Mia,’ Prime Video’s most successful international original movie of all time,...

Madrid-based Rock & Ruz – the production company of Netflix’s “Nowhere,” which has just been confirmed by Netflix as its most-viewed Spanish-language movie of all time – has pacted new projects with Italy’s Leonardo Fasoli, a head-writer of “Gomorrah” and creator of “ZeroZeroZero,” and Spain-based Alejandro Hernández, a co-writer on Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War” and “La Fortuna.”

Targeting the key to high-end fiction success in Europe – its screenwriters – and added to “Nowhere” and an upcoming Spanish-Mexican remake of hit Korean movie “Miracle in Cell No. 7” – the freshly-announced projects mark out Rock & Ruz as a new and significant Spain-based international player.

As international markets – both theatrical and global streamers – are asking for bigger films with identifiable audiences, Rock & Ruz’s bold slate looks like a ready source of titles.

“Our company is focused on producing global strategic projects. No matter if they are in English or Spanish,” Rock & Ruz...

New Amazon Prime Video series “Los Farad,” released Dec. 12, takes a look at the Cold War from one of its strangest geo-political hubs, 1980s Málaga. The action-packed show follows a family that is normal in many ways, despite earning a luxurious living as arms traffickers.

Part of a determinedly diverse and burgeoning lineup at Spain’s Prime Video, “Los Farad” is a high-profile prestige package starring Miguel Herrán – who plays Rio in “Money Heist” and Cristián in “Elite” – and the on-the-rise Susana Abaitúa, who delivered a tearaway performance in Netflix rom-com “Crazy About Her.”

Co-created by Alejandro Aménabar co-scribe Alejandro Hernández, “Los Farad” is directed by Mariano Barroso in his fifth collaboration with Hernández.

Emerging as one of Spain’s most notable drama series directors in an age of premium fiction, Barroso has extracted terrific, nuanced performances in series set in Spain’s recent past, such as “The Invisible Line” and “What the Future Holds.

Mubi Podcast: Encuentros returns with a series of special episodes in audio and video.This episode features:Ernesto Alterio (Argentina), an actor who has been nominated for two Goya Awards for his performances in Fernando Colomo’s The Stolen Years and David Serrano’s comedy Días de fútbol. He has worked with several renowned directors from Argentina and Spain, including Marcelo Piñeyro, Mariano Barroso, Emilio Martínez-Lázaro, Carlso Saura, Benjamín Ávila, and Álex de la Iglesia. Cecilia Suárez (Mexico), an actress who has been nominated for three Ariel Awards, and has won two Platino Awards. In recent years, she has worked on Manolo Caro's film and streaming projects, as well as films by Fernando Colomo and Violeta Salama. In this episode, the guests talk about acting as a space where identities dissolve and words can take on new meaning. In front of a live audience, Cecilia and Ernesto meet to...

Former president of the Film Academy in Spain joins streamer.

Spanish filmmaker Mariano Barroso is joining Netflix as head of film for Spain and Portugal.

Barroso will report into Diego Avalos, Netflix’s head of content for Spain and Portugal.

The Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer is a winner of three Goya awards, and was president of the Film Academy in Spain from 2018 to 2022.

Barroso won the best new director prize in 1993 for Mi Hermano Del Alma, the best documentary film prize in 2007 for Invisibles and the best adapted screenplay award for Todas Las Mujeres in 2013.

He has directed among others Éxtasis,...

Elena Trapé, whose character-driven ensemble pieces “Blog” and “The Distances” marked her out as a talent to watch, is attached to direct “Gwendolyne, Diary of a Fan,”, one of two series being brought onto the market at Ventana Sur’s Spanish Screenings by Barcelona-based Coming Soon Films.

Screenplay for “Gewndlyne” is by Marta Buisán and Jordi Casado and Miguel Ibánez Monroy.

Led by Marta Ramírez, post-production coordinator on J.A. Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” Coming Soon, which already produced Trapé’s “The Distances,” is also introducing in Buenos Aires “The Summer of Dead Toys,” (“El verano de los juguetes muertos”), a procedural adapting Catalan Tony Hill’s acclaimed debut crime novel of the same title, produced with Barcelona’s Corte y Confección de Películas.

“Gwendolyne’s” titular protagonist, now 30, had one of the times of her life – one of the only times of her life – when 15, she was chasing the Sexy Gods,...

Moving waves on Spain’s film-tv scene when it launched in early May, Beta Fiction Spain has unveiled its first project as a producer, “Dolores,” a portrait of Spain’s Dolores Ibarruri, a worldwide icon of the workers’ movement and struggle against fascism.

The feature film is inspired by “Pasionaria. La vida inesperada de Dolores Ibárruri,” a question-posing non-fiction book by Spanish historian Diego Díaz Alonso published in 2020.

Underscoring Beta Fiction Spain’s ability to attach best-of-class Spanish talent, the screenplay for “Pasionaria” is being penned by two of Spain’s foremost film-tv scribes, Alejandro Hernández, co-writer of Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War” and Mariano Barroso’s “What the Future Holds,” and Michel Gaztambide, a writer on Julio Medem’s milestone 1992 debut “Cows,” Enrique Urbizu’s best picture Goya winner “No Rest for the Wicked” and Freddy Highmore heist thriller “The Vault,” the second highest-grossing Spanish movie of 2021.

Díaz Alonso...

Leticia Dolera, co-writer, lead director and star of the Movistar Plus-HBO Max produced “Perfect Life,” a 2019 double Canneseries winner, is developing a new series, “Puberty,” which looks sure to be one of the hottest titles at this month’s Conecta Fiction & Entertainment.

Now in development, “Puberty” will be presented in Conecta Fiction’s High-End Series section.

Penned by Dolera and writer-producer Almudena Monzú and to be directed by Dolera, “Puberty” (“Pubertat”) turns on an alleged sexual assault among adolescents, which sheds light on the sexual taboos of the adults in charge of them.

“Can a 13-year-old boy be a sexual aggressor? And who’s responsible? The under-age boy, his family or society? Surely all of them,” the synopsis runs.

“‘Puberty’ talks about the weight of taboo and how this is transmitted between generation and generation, at a cultural, emotional and psychological level,” Dolera commented. “One of the big taboos...

Telefonica’s Movistar Plus, Spain’s biggest pay-tv/SVOD operator, has launched an in-house overseas sales division, Movistar Plus Internacional, headed up by former Sony and Buendía Estudios exec Maria Valenzuela.

Lorena Molloy, an ex-exec at The Mediapro Studio, has joined Movistar Plus Internacional beginning in March as its head of communication and marketing.

Valenzuela, who began working with the platform last summer, heading international strategy and business development, reports directly to Domingo Corral, Movistar Plus’ director of original production.

Movistar Plus Internacional is making further appointments, raising staff to around 10 employees, Valenzuela said. It will attend all major markets, beginning with Series Mania and MipTV/Canneseries, focusing at least in the short term on sales to Europe, Eastern Europe, U.S. and Latin America, she added.

Presented officially on March 4 in Madrid, the new distribution arm comes after Movistar Plus, Spain’s biggest content investor, has until recently used...

The Spanish Film Academy has announced that its first-ever International Goya Award will be received by Hollywood star Cate Blanchett. Currently presided by Mariano Barroso, the Spanish Film Academy created the award to “honor artists that have contributed to cinema as a medium that brings together different cultures and people”. Blanchett was recognised for her […]...

The Spanish Film Academy announced on Friday that its first-ever International Goya Award will be received by Cate Blanchett.

Currently presided by Mariano Barroso, the Spanish Film Academy created the award to “honor artists that have contributed to cinema as a medium that brings together different cultures and people.” In Friday’s announcement, Blanchett was recognized for her impactful work both on and off the screen worldwide — as an award-winning actor, producer, artistic director and humanitarian. She will receive the award at a gala ceremony on Feb. 12 in Valencia, Spain.

Blanchett has earned two Oscars, three BAFTAs and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. The Australian actor’s recent film credits include Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” and “Don’t Look Up.” Other credits over the years include “Carol,” “Blue Jasmine,” “The Aviator,” and “Elizabeth.” Over the course of her career, she has collaborated with many prominent filmmakers — including Adam McKay,...

In yet another sign of explosive growth on Spain’s drama scene, Amazon Prime Video has unveiled four new Amazon Original series or movies tapping the large talents of some of its most successful comedy directors, producers, novelists and drama series creators.

In a sign of Amazon Studios’ hiked ambitions, the productions were described by Georgia Brown, Amazon’s head of European Originals, as “local stories that resonate with local audiences and have a global impact.” In the past, Amazon has stressed more the need for the former.

Also updating Spanish journalists in Madrid on Wednesday morning on progress on the already announced “Sin Huellas” and “Un asunto privado,” Prime Video’s new slate shows it enrolling some of the biggest stars in Spain, led by “Below Zero’s” Javier Gutiérrez and Carmen Machi.

Alongside Sílvia Abril, the two actors topline family time-travel comedy “Mañana es hoy” which is directed...

The Goyas were presented by Antonio Banderas from the theatre he owns in Malaga.

Pilar Palomero’s directorial debut Schoolgirls won the best film and best new director award at Spain’s Goya awards on Saturday March 6 in a pandemic-era ceremony that celebrated fresh voices and a strong female presence.

The hybrid ceremony - all the nominees were at home - was sober and started with a minute’s silence for the pandemic’s victims. It was also much shorter than usual. The socially-distanced red carpet was only for the celebrities in charge of giving the awards and Antonio Banderas,...

Pilar Palomero’s “Schoolgirls” (“Las Niñas”), a coming-of-age story and generational portrait of Spanish women who would now be in their 40s, swept an extraordinary and admirable 35th edition of Spain’s Goya Awards on Saturday, scooping best picture, new director, original screenplay and cinematography.

Salvador Calvo won best director for the three-part, Africa-set drama “Adú,” a Netflix pick-up produced by Telecinco Cinema, Ikiru Films and La Terraza Films that proved one of Spain’s biggest box office hits of last year, earning €6.3 million ($7.6 million) at the Spanish box office, promoted to the hilt by Telecinco Cinema parent Mediaset España.

Marking a milestone in his transition from Spanish heartthrob to character actor, Mario Casas won best actor for “No Matarás.” Patricia López Arnaíz took best actress for her role in “Ane is Missing,” a confident mother-daughter relationship drama-thriller melding psychological observation and social critique, set against the background of high-speed train construction in a 2009 Bilbao.

Update, 9.45Am: The 2021 Goyas nominations announcement has been rescheduled for next Monday, January 18, at 11am local Spanish time. The initial plan was to announce today but the event, which will be held at the Spanish Academy’s HQ in Madrid, had to delay a week due to heavy snow in the country’s capital.

Actress Ana Belén and actor Dani Rovira will announce the nominees, accompanied by the president of the Academy, Mariano Barroso.

Previously, 6:23Am: Extreme weather in Spain has caused widespread disruption, including the postponement of the nominations announcement for the 2021 Goyas, the country’s national film awards.

Storm Filomena has blanketed parts of the country in snow, in particular capital Madrid which saw up to 20cm in the last 24 hours, closing much of the city. At least three people have died in the adverse conditions, which is Spain’s heaviest snowfall for 50 years.

The Goyas were...

For decades, local fiction dominated free-to-air primetime over much of Europe. Many big U.S. water cooler titles like “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” made the running on pay TV.

That old order is now more challenged than ever as Movistar Plus, Spain’s leading pay TV operator, underscored on Tuesday, announcing the top 5 series across its pay TV and SVOD platform in Spain in 2020. All shows are Spanish and Movistar Plus originals.

Topping the list is Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “Antidisturbios” (Riot Police), which was a big hit with critics and audiences at September’s San Sebastian Festival. The series also proved the most addictive hit on Movistar Plus with almost nine out of 10 viewers finishing the title. It’s now tracking to become the most watched Movistar Plus original series ever.

Elsewhere, Movistar Plus’ first series out of the gate after Covid-19 clampdown, and moved forward to an April bow,...

The teams behind two documentaries, two fictional series and eleven feature films courted the favour of production executives, streaming platforms and TV networks on the programme’s final day. It was a little over a year ago that we announced the beginning of the Film Academy Residences Programme (read more here), launched in collaboration with the City of Madrid Film Office and set to showcase 15 exciting new projects. The programme has now run its course, bowing out just a few days ago with a special presentation and pitch event. It was a chance for production companies, streaming platforms and TV networks to get a first look at the documentaries, feature films and TV series supported over the course of the year — some now retitled — including a new project to join the programme in recent months, Diego Pinillos Fernández’s El valor se le supone. Mariano Barroso, president of the...

Twenty projects by the likes of Pilar Palomero, Gabriel Azorín and Ion de Sosa will benefit from the wisdom and experience of directors including Isabel Coixet, Juan Cavestany and Manuel Martín Cuenca. Following the success of last year’s inaugural edition (read more here), the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — led by Mariano Barroso — launched the second edition of its Residences programme on Monday, 5 October. The initiative, coordinated by Inés Enciso, is designed to offer intensive coaching to a talented cohort of creative filmmakers. Due to the current public health situation, this year’s edition will adopt a hybrid format, with some aspects moved online. The programme will continue until July 2021, during which time the selected participants will work on their projects with support and guidance from some of Spain’s most illustrious directors, including Isabel Coixet, Juan Cavestany, Belén Funes, Manuel Martín Cuenca, Víctor García...

Antonio Banderas is set to host the 2021 Spanish Academy Goya Awards on Feb. 27 in Banderas’ hometown of Malaga. It is the actor’s first time hosting the awards, and he will share duties with María Casado, one of Spain’s most respected television journalists and president of the Television Academy.

Banderas, among Spain’s best-known cinematic exports for decades, has five Spanish Academy nominations and an Honorary Goya of his own. But it was only this year that the actor finally took home a trophy for his work in Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory,” a performance which also won him best actor at Cannes and an Oscar nomination.

According to the Academy, there are plans to limit audience capacity and impose strict health and safety measures based on expert recommendations at the time the ceremony is held. Banderas’ production company Teatro Soho TV will help produce the ceremony which...

Nuria Valls

Valls already has 14 producer or exec-producer credits, including Eugenio Mira’s “Grand Piano,” Fernando González Molina’s Spanish blockbuster “Palm Trees in the Snow,” and Dan Krauss’ “The Kill Team;” all alongside her partner Adrián Guerra at Nostromo. Her latest productions include Alex and David Pastor’s “The Occupant” and Molina’s “Offering to the Storm,” both acquired by Netflix. Valls will shortly resume shooting on “Los favoritos de Midas,” created by Mateo Gil, her first TV series. “I’d like to do exactly what we’ve done so far: Making all kinds of movies we’d like to watch, not only genre.”

Oriol MAYMÓ

Maymó participated in the production of Rodrigo Cortés’ “Buried,” Marcel Barrena’s “Little World” and Pau Freixas’ TV-series “The Red Band Society” among many other titles. Now based out of Corte y Confección, he has produced Leticia Dolera’s Canneseries winner “A Perfect...

Madrid — Legendary Global, the TV production-financing house launched last December by Chris Albrecht and Anne Thomopoulos, has struck a weighty production alliance with Barcelona’s ESPotlight to develop and produce premium content targeting the global Spanish-speaking market.

Announced Thursday, the deal sees Legendary Global committing to develop and produce with ESPotlight 10-plus productions a year targeting streaming platforms, pay TV and commercial networks.

First up, and currently in production, is “La Treintena,” a feel-good dramedy written and directed by Mireia Noguera and co-written by Marta Vives.

Following the lives of four, late-twenties girlfriends living under Covid confinement in Barcelona, the six-part series stars Mireia Oriol, Paula Malia, Marta Vives and David Solans.

Driving into Spanish-language production, Legendary Global has gone straight to the jugular, striking a production relationship with a budding Spanish producer with established talent relations: Barcelona-based, ESPotlight is the content arm of talent agency Alter Ego Talent House whose clients include Mariano Barroso,...

Mariano Barroso avails himself of a cast of first-rate actors, toplined by Antonio de la Torre and Álex Monner, and a somewhat classical narrative as he recreates the origins of Eta. The date was set for this Wednesday, 8 April, at 10 pm: the team was to present the online premiere of La línea invisible (lit. “The Invisible Line”), each person from his or her own home, suitably dressed for the occasion. And so director Mariano Barroso and lead actors Àlex Monner, Antonio de la Torre, Anna Castillo, Asier Etxeandia, Patrick Criado and Enric Auquer introduced the first two episodes of this series, which is free to air and to view (via the Movistar + YouTube channel), and which describes, from a simultaneously historical and personal perspective, how the terrorist group Eta came into being. This was an entity that left mortal victims strewn not only across the Basque Country,...

MipTV Online Plus ends on April 2. Series Mania’s Digital Forum on April 7. As virtual marketplace presentations foreseeably wind down, here area few first takes on the world’s first, and one hopes last, totally online business. More will be added shortly.

Series Mania, MipTV Newsflow Weakens in a Virtual Market

Yes, deals were announced during the Series Mania/Mip-TV virtual marketplace, which may now be beginning to wind down. Federation unveiled strong pre-sales on “The Bureau” S5 and “Bad Banks” S2, Beta Film deals on “Cryptid” (Germany’s Joyn), “La Unidad” (HBO Latin America) and “The Turncoat” (all Nordic state TVs); Fremantle announced Dr’s purchase of “Five Guys a Week,” and Globo sales on telenovelas in Latin America. Cineflix Rights tub-thumped a Spring/Summer slate, adding ITN docs; Brazil’s Encripta bought five dramas from Russia’s Ntv. Filmax announced a drama reversion of horror movie classic...

The Spanish TV industry has been shaken by the dramatic impact of the coronavirus crisis, but it is fighting back.

Industry players have reacted fast, pushing forward with development, post-production and other business activities using online tools, and with the expectation of supporting funds from both public and private initiatives that will mitigate the effects of the crisis in production.

As has been the case in the local film sector, TV fiction production has been halted, with some 30 TV drama project shoots suspended.

Despite huge difficulties, the TV networks haven’t stopped broadcasting live, operating as normally as possible. Live programming, held without the presence of audiences, continues. News programs, crucial in crisis times, are breaking ratings records. There is, though, a higher than usual presence of reruns.

The release of original TV dramas, a key content for VOD platforms, is being adapted to the exceptional circumstances.

HBO has postponed the keenly-awaited launch of “Patria,...

Madrid – Originally planned to premiere alongside fellow Movistar Plus Original “La Unidad” at this year’s MipTV, “La Línea Invisible” will now instead screen for international buyers digitally in an online showcase hosted by the Spanish broadcaster on Monday.

From “What the Future Holds” creator Mariano Barroso (“The Wolves of Washington”), the six-part series is the origins story of Spain’s Basque terrorist organization Eta, and its first assassination of José civil guard Antonio Pardines on June 7, 1968 by the young group leader Txabi Etxebarrieta, later the organization’s first member killed in action. Eta would be responsible for another 828 murders before agreeing to a final extended ceasefire on Sept. 5, 2010.

“La Linea Invisible” boasts some of Spain’s most-awarded cinematic talent in front of the camera as well, including Antonio de la Torre, a recent Spanish Academy Goya and Platino Award winner for his tour de force lead in “The Kingdom...

Madrid — Spain’s Malaga Festival, the country’s biggest festival dedicated to Spanish and Latin American films and TV, has been postponed, the Malaga Town Hall announced Tuesday.

No new date has been suggested for the event. Via Twitter, Municipal authorities adduced “uncertainty generated by the evolution of coronavirus” as the reason for the postponement.

“Although health authorities have not expressly banned the Festival from taking place, their recommendation to avoid traveling within Spain makes it difficult for the festival to take place normally,” the Town Hall added.

Spain’s Ministry of Health advised Spaniards on Monday against traveling in Spain. The 23rd Malaga Festival was due to open in three days time, running March 13-22.

The postponement is a blow to Spain’s film and TV industry which has increasingly turned to the Malaga Festival as a platform for new works from established talent and Germany but trailing Italy’s 9,172, according to The Lancet.

Madrid — Ever expanding the geographic reach of its drama series, Spain’s Movistar Plus’ announced Thursday that it will go into production this year on the Cuba-set “Habanos,” written and led creatively by Alejandro Hernandez, a rising star on Spain’s premium content scene.

A co-scribe on Mariano Barroso’s “What the Future Holds,” held by many critics to be Movistar Plus’ best series to date, Hernández also co-wrote Alejandro Amenabar’s recent movie hit “While at War” and Barroso’s upcoming “La Linea Invisible,” both for Movistar Plus, as well as Netflix’s “Criminal: Spain.”

A Movistar Plus Original Series, “Habanos” is produced by José María Morales at Wanda Films and Cuban film-tv agency Icaic.

Hernandez co-wrote “Habanos” with film director Manuel Martín Cuenca, extending a partnership which takes in Martín Cuenca’s newest film, “La hija,” and “El autor” and goes back to the director’s 2001 docu-feature “El juego de Cuba.

Two of the most critical issues in the Svod age are production facilities and talent.

That’s what Madrid Content City, conceived as an ambitious production hub by Spain’s Secuoya Group, is bringing to the table in Tres Cantos, a dormitory village near the capital, its integration of industry and university aiming to satisfy ever stronger demand for upscale content in the Spanish-speaking world and beyond.

In July 2018, Netflix announced its first European Production Hub at the five-soundstage Secuoya Studios. Four months later at MipCancun, Secuoya Group president Raul Berdonés unveiled plans for a Madrid Content City, built on Secuoya Studios.

In December, Berdonés inked a strategic deal with publishing giant the Planeta Group to construct an innovative university campus at Madrid Content City.

By September 2021, once three construction stages are completed, McC will become the second biggest film-tv production center in Europe after the U.K.’s Pinewood Studios,...

Madrid — Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” took home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Antonio Banderas) and Best Original Screenplay at the 34th Spanish Academy Goya Awards, as well as Best Editing, Original Music and Supporting Actress (Julieta Serrano).

Almodóvar’s night did have one blemish, however. On the red carpet ahead of the ceremony he accidentally let slip that actress Penelope Cruz will be handing out this year’s Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars, as she and Banderas did last time Almodóvar won, with 2000’s “All About my Mother.”

Saturday night’s ceremony ran like a marathon, with Almodóvar and Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War” exchanging the lead back and forth over the 3.5 hour ceremony before “Pain and Glory” took the ceremony’s final three prizes, ending with seven awards while Amenábar’s Spanish Civil War epic notched five.

In his first on-stage appearance of the night,...

Madrid — Movistar Plus, the pay TV/Svod arm of giant European telecom Telefonica, is upping the ante. On New Year’s Eve, it announced a first 2020 release line-up – more titles may be added – that has two big swings, more emphasis on action, and a larger number of comedy and non-fiction plays.

2020’s 14 new series or seasons marks an all-time company record.

That, however, is just Movistar Plus, and does not count any big series in the second half of the year, or any that it might put into development via a new joint production venture, announced in September, with broadcast network Atresmedia.

Also, there may be more feature films, following on the company’s first original movie, Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War,” which earned a gratifying €11.0 million at the Spanish box office this year, and established the pay TV unit as one of the very few companies in Spain...

The Les Arcs Film Festival has unveiled its selection of work in progress projects for 2019. The event, held at a French ski resort, is a film fest with an industry wing that has become well regarded in its 11 years’ of existence. A total of 18 features will take part this year, seven of which are directed by women (39%) – there were 34% female applicants. None of the selected films have sales agents attached. They are: Anna Nemes’ Beauty Of The Beast (Hungary); Eva Küpper’s Dark Rider; Ekaterina Selenkina’s Figures In The Urban Landscape (Russia), Slávek Horák’s Havel (Czech Republic), Khadar Ahmed’s The Gravedigger; Luàna Bajrami’s The Hill Where Lionesses Roar; Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu (Malta); Alessandro De Toni’s Myjing (Italy); Nabil Ben Yadir’s Praey; Fredrik Louis Hviid and Anders Ølholm’s Shorta (Denmark); Roman Vasyanov’s...

Netflix has shared a new trailer for their upcoming British procedural anthology series Criminal. What makes this series unique is the fact that it take place “exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite.” It is described as “a stripped-down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question.”

The series is set in France, Spain, Germany, and the U.K., and this trailer gives us our first real look at what’s in store. The series has a great cast that includes David Tennant (Doctor Who) who plays a man “charged with murdering his teen step-daughter. The interrogators’ challenge in this ‘Criminal: UK’ Ep. 1 will be to break down his ‘no comment’ inscrutability.” The series also stars Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), who is seen in the trailer walking down a corridor as she prepares to be questioned by police.

Just over two weeks before its Sept. 20 global launch, Netflix has dropped its first full franchise trailer of “Criminal,” a 12-episode, four-part police interrogation anthology which reworks the procedural format taking it to a new European level, while focusing on what episodic drama is often held to disdain: Character and actors’ performance.

Netflix has already teased the crime thriller’s best-of-their class European key cast. Others trailers have targeted the individual countries where “Criminal” episodes are set – U.K., Spain, France and Germany – three in each country.

Wednesday’s trailer is, however, the first full-franchise reveal of action across the series, hinting at some of the its major fascinations, innovations and character details.

Playing suspects, many of “Criminal’s” guests stars are hailed in home countries as among their generation’s finest actors. Of U.K. stars, entering a lift at the beginning of the trailer is the bulky former...

Acclaimed filmmakers and newcomers alike are among the first intake of this international training scheme, due to start in October in Madrid. Film Academy Residences is a new initiative being launched by The Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain in partnership with the Ayuntamiento de Madrid. It is hoped that the programme will give a boost to the careers of the filmmakers selected for the first intake, who, from September this year to June 2020, will receive professional support and guidance at the Academy’s headquarters in Madrid. Out of the 985 film treatments submitted, 15 projects were chosen by a committee comprising Belén Atienza (producer of The Imposible), director Carla Simón (Summer 1993), Colombian filmmaker Rodrigo García, Gonzalo de Pedro (Artistic Director at Cineteca Madrid), Araceli Gonzalo Delgado (Technical Advisor to the Ayuntamiento de Madrid), Mariano Barroso (President of the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences) and Rafael...

Netflix has set the premiere date for its police interrogation drama Criminal. The series, which stars For Life’s Nicholas Pinnock, Doctor Who’s David Tennant and Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell, will launch on September 20.

The Svod service has also unveiled the first images for the format bending series.

Criminal consists of 12 episodes of 45 minutes with three episodes each set across four countries – France, Spain, Germany and the UK. The drama takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite. It is a stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question.

Pinnock, Cheat’s Katherine Kelly, Lee Ingleby, Mark Stanley, Rochenda Sandall and Shubham Saraf star in the UK episodes with Tennant and Atwell guest starring alongside Youssef Kerkour, and Clare-Hope Ashitey.

In France, Margot Bancilhon, Laurent Lucas, Stéphane Jobert, Anne Azoulay and Mhamed Arezki...

Madrid — Marking its eighth quarter of consecutive growth in pay TV clients, Movistar Plus, the pay TV/Svod division of Telefonica, Europe’s third-biggest telecom, punched 11,300 net additions in customers from April to June.

The figure is 49% up year-on-year in terms of net adds, and takes Movistar’s total pay TV sub count in Spain to 4,106,100, extending its domination as Spain’s biggest pay TV player.

“These are very good results coming despite the recent launch of multiple new video Ott players in Spain and the end of the soccer season,” said Maria Aguete Rua, Ihs Markit executive director, technology, media & telecom.

“This proves that it’s not only sports that drives pay TV growth in Spain, but also content, movies and series,” she added, noting that eight of the top 10 shows on Movistar Plus’ platform are original series.

Movistar clients in Spain may have got into a habit of...

Irun, Spain — When- and why – do people begin to kill for a cause?

Having created “What the Future Holds,” maybe the best reviewed to date of any Movistar + Original Series, Spain’s Mariano Barroso (“The Wolves of Washington”) tackles this question head on in “La Línea Invisible,” a six-part series, again from Movistar +, focusing on the first assassination perpetrated by Basque terrorist org Eta – of José Antonio Pardines, a humble civil guard, on June 7 1968. 828 further Eta murders were to follow.

“La línea Invisible” marks the second Movistar + Original Series to shoot this year, after “On Death Row,” based on true events, as Movistar +, the pay TV arm of Telefonica, Europe’ second biggest telecom, focuses ever more in its Original Sries on the recent – or contemporary – history of Spain, enrolling some of the greatest Spanish actors. The stars of “La Línea Invisible” are examples: Antonio de la Torre, a recent Spanish...

Nicholas Pinnock, star of ABC’s forthcoming legal drama For Life, Doctor Who’s David Tennant and Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell are to star in Netflix’s police interrogation drama Criminal.

The format bending series consists of 12 episodes of 45 minutes with three episodes each set across four countries – France, Spain, Germany and the UK. The drama takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite. It is a stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question.

Pinnock, Cheat’s Katherine Kelly Lee Ingleby, Mark Stanley, Rochenda Sandall and Shubham Saraf star in the UK episodes with Tennant and Atwell guest starring alongside Youssef Kerkour, and Clare-Hope Ashitey.

In France, Margot Bancilhon, Laurent Lucas, Stéphane Jobert, Anne Azoulay and Mhamed Arezki star alongside guest stars Nathalie Baye, Jérémie Renier and Sara Giraudeau.

In Germany, Eva Meckbach,...

Barcelona – Agustina Macri’s feature debut “Soledad” (Solitude) won Best Feature award at the 3rd Barcelona Film Festival, which ran April 22-30.

Produced by Italy’s 39Films and Argentina’s Cinema 7 Films, and inspired by true events, the film follows titular Soledad Rosas who moved to Italy in 1997 to a squatters community. There she met a militant anarchist with whom she had a brief and intense love affair. A year later the couple was arrested and accused of terroristic acts meant to halt the construction of a railway.

The screenplay was penned by Paolo Logli and Macri –the daughter of Argentine president Mauricio Macri. “Soledad” world-premiered at the Warsaw Film Festival and will be released in Argentina and Italy through Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and Walt Disney Company Italia respectively.

The Acec Critic’s Award went to another debut, this time from actress-turned-director Laura Jou. Produced by longtime...

45 Revolutions

(Atresmedia, Bambú Producciones)

The birth of a new rock record label in Spain’s conservative early ’60s.

Sa: A3Media Sales

Costa Del Sol Brigade

(Mediaset, Warner Bros. Itvp Spain, Netflix)

A MipDrama Buyers’ Summit entry. A facts-inspired cop thriller chronicling an early Spanish anti-narcotics squad.

Sa: Warner Bros. Itvp Spain

Dangerous Moms

(Mediaset, Producciones Mandarina)

A black crime farce in which four mothers are embroiled in accidental murder. Mediaset’s second MipDrama Summit contender.

Sa: Mediterráneo

Garbo, The Spy Who Double-crossed Hitler

(Portocabo, Vaca Films, Fearless Minds, Banijay Studios France)

Historical thriller mini-series inspired by the extraordinary life of WWII double agent Juan Pujol. Development

Hierro

(Movistar +, Arte France, Portocabo, Atlantique Productions)

The first Movistar + international co-production; a murder investigation set against spectacular landscapes of the titular Atlantic isle.

Sa: Banijay Rights.

Instinto

(Movistar +, Bambú Producciones)

An erotic thriller starring Mario Casas (“The 33”). Sold to Amazon in Latin America.

Cannes — Powering up an enhanced production-distribution axis in Europe, Movistar +, the pay TV unit of Telefonica, Europe’s second biggest telco, have closed a multi-year distribution-production alliance with Germany’s Beta Film, one of the continent’s biggest independent production-distribution companies.

Beta Film already distributed Movistar + series on a title-by-title basis. Made by Christian Gockel, Beta pre-Mip TV dinner, and Ismael Calleja, Movistar + head of production & business affairs, on Sunday night the new deal allows for far deeper collaboration.

Deal announcement came as, distributed by Beta Film, Leticia Dolera’s Movistar + Original Series “Perfect Life” world premiered on Sunday in Official Competition at Cannes. A further Movistar + title, also sold by Beta Film, Mariano Barroso’s “What the Future Holds,” will receive an international premiere screening at MipTV on Monday.

In essence, the new deal transforms a title-by-title distribution arrangement, where Beta Film’s involvement sometimes came on finished product,...

SVoD platform estimates it will employ 20,000 people in Spain.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Francisco Ramos, vice-president of originals for Spain and Latin America for Netflix, officially inaugurated the premises of the company’s first physical European hub, dubbed Casa Netflix, in Madrid today (April 4).

“Spain’s long history of production, great talent schools, great history and companies,” said Hastings in response to the question of why the company is investing so heavily in Spain. “It’s a very developed industry and we hope with the investments that we are making, and with others, it will continue to grow.”

Hastings...

Madrid — Continuing its strong line in cutting-edge Spanish drama series, Germany’s Beta Film has acquired international distribution rights to Mariano Barroso’s “What the Future Holds” (“El día de mañana”), one of the best-received of Movistar +’s recent Original Series.

Beta Film will introduce the series to buyers at next month’s MipTV market.

Directed by Barroso and produced by Movistar + and Mod Producciones, headed by Fernando Bovaira, whose producer credits include Alejandro Amenábar’s “The Others” and Oscar winner, “The Sea Inside” and Alejandro G. Iñarritu’s “Biutiful,” “What the Future Holds” turns on Justo Gil, a village lad with little education who hits a dazzling 1967 Barcelona – caught by Barroso is a street of high-rise flats stretching to the horizon – determined to make it big and thinking the world is there for the taking. He meets Carme, who works at her uncle’s printers. They fall in love.

Netflix is producing an interesting new police procedural series called Criminal that will be set in four different countries.

What makes this series unique is the fact that it will take place “exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite.” It is described as “a stripped-down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question.”

I really like the minimalist concept of a series that completely focuses on what goes on in an interrogation room. Netflix has ordered 12 episodes, and the episodes will be set in France, Spain, Germany, and the U.K.

The series was co-created by George Kay and Jim Field Smith, and they will serve as showrunners and executive producers. It’s also explained that the episodes will be in the local language of whichever country they are set in. Those episodes will also be written...

Kirsten Howard Nov 28, 2018

Killing Eve's George Kay and Endeavour's Jim Field Smith are behind the UK episodes...

A new series is in the works at Netflix, set to put a fascinating spin on the near-primordial format of the "police procedural."

Criminal will take place exclusively within one room - a police interview suite - and will cover stories happening in four separate countries within its 12-episode first season. Netflix has pitched it as a "stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama" that will focus on "the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question."

The streaming giant has rounded up quite a team to pull this gamble off. The UK episodes boast the duo of George Kay (Killing Eve) and Jim Field Smith (Endeavour), while the French episodes will be written and directed by the likes of Frederic Mermoud, Antonin Martin-Hilbert (Nina) and Mathieu Missoffe (Profilage).

Meanwhile, the German-set...

Netflix has ordered a new procedural series that will be set in four different countries.

“Criminal” is a police procedural that takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite. It is described as a stripped-down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question. Netflix has ordered 12 episodes, with four each set in the following countries: France, Spain, Germany, and the U.K.

All 12 episodes will film at Netflix’s production hub at Ciudad de la Tele in Madrid.

The episodes will be in the local language of whichever country they are set in, as well as written and directed by talent from their respective countries.

George Kay and Jim Field Smith co-created the series and will serve as showrunners and executive producers. Kay will also write the U.K. episodes with Field Smith directing. The France...

Netflix is heading to the police interrogation room with format bending procedural Criminal.

The Svod service has commissioned the 12-part series from Killing Eve writer George Kay and Wrong Mans producer She’s Out Of My League director Jim Field Smith. The show, which consists of episodes of 45 minutes, is set across four countries – France, Spain, Germany and the UK – with three episodes per country.

Criminal takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite. It is a stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question.

Each episode will be produced in local language, written and directed by local talent. Co-creators Kay and Field Smith, whose Idiotlamp Productions will produce, are set as showrunners and will write the UK version.

In France, Spiral and The Returned’s Frederic Mermoud, Nina’s Antonin Martin-Hilbert and Profilage...

Series will take place across Europe but shoot entirely in streaming platform’s Madrid hub.

Netflix has ordered Criminal, a 12-episode police procedural set in the UK, France, Spain and Germany that will shoot entirely at the global streamer’s production hub at Ciudad de la Tele in Madrid.

Three 45-minute episodes of the series – with action taking place exclusively in police interview rooms - will be set in each country, written and directed by local talent and filmed in the local language.

The overall series showrunners and co-creators for their UK-based Idiotlamp Productions are Killing Eve and The Tunnel...

Starting with the launch of high-fashion melodrama “Velvet Collection” on Sept. 22 last year, followed by seven more scripted productions to date, the launch of original series from Spain’s Movistar Plus has helped stem the company’s loss of pay-tv subscribers. In 2016, pay-tv clients dropped 0.4% year on year. But in 2017, pay-tv accesses were up 5%, or 92,100 customers, to 3.848 million by year-end. It remains to be seen, after Movistar Plus renewed Champions League and La Liga Spanish league soccer rights, how much subs may grow this September. Most to the point, however, average revenue per subscriber of Movistar Plus’ bundled broadband-tv-mobile customers rose strongly over the past 12 months from €84.8 ($99.5), second quarter 2017, to €89.5 ($105), May-June.

“We all had the intuition at Telefonica that our customers would want to have content made here in Spain, talking about our reality and made by our talent. That has been proved right,” says Domingo Corral, director of Movistar + original fiction.

Madrid — Yvonne Blake, an Academy Award-winning costume designer and indefatigable recent president of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences, died Tuesday on Madrid having suffered a stroke this January. She was 78.

Manchester-born and a grant-winning student at its Regional College of Art & Design, Blake worked as an intern at costume house Berman’s, becoming an assistant costume designer on Hammer Studios’ underrated “Never Take Sweets from a Stranger,” released in 1960, its 1961 “The Shadow of My Cat” and George Cukor’s “My Fair Lady” (1964).

Also working on François Truffaut’s “Fahrenheit 451,” Blake talents were rapidly recognized: She had risen to the full status of costume designer by 1966.

Meeting her future husband, Spaniard Gil Carretero, on the set of Richard Quine’s Spain-shot “Gun Crazy,” Blake won an Oscar aged only 31 in 1972, along with Antonio Castillo, for her work on “Nicholas and Alexander,” which brought her back to Spain.