Movistar Plus Slate Covers All Bases
FELIX
Teaming audience-friendly auteur Cesc Gay (“Truman”) and thesp Leonardo Sbaraglia (“Wild Tales”), the eight-segment series turns on a man’s search for a young Asian girl who disappears just before their second date. “A fish-out-of-water comedy thriller,” says Gay, “Felix” shot for 11 weeks in Andorra and eight in Barcelona, enough time for a director and an actor “to construct a role and interpretation, as in cinema,” according to Gay.
GIANTS
Spanish thriller specialist Enrique Urbizu, the kind of multi-laureled and accessible auteur that Movistar Plus has courted for its first series, hits the small screen with “a family tragedy,” according to Emmanuelle Guilbart at sales agent About Premium Content. It’s described as “King Lear” meets Martin Scorsese in a violent, tense TV drama about the conflicts and internal struggles of a Roma drug dealers’ family. Urbizu re-teams with “Box 507” and “No Rest for the Wicked” star José Coronado, this time to film in multiple Madrid locations such as the traditional Rastro district and peripheral shanty towns.
LA ZONA
Also on Beta’s books, and one of Mipcom’s featured Intl. Screenings, it’s a Western-crime thriller pastiche set in a no-go zone after a nuclear accident. Eduard Fer nández is a detective with a deep sense of guilt investigating murders. “Zona” is also produced by Koldo Zuazua’s Kowalski and Juan Moreno’s Feelgood Media. Expect a further dose of a hallmark mix of narrative tension and character/social concern from brothers Jorge and Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo, creators of “Crematorium,” one of the most admired Spanish pay-TV series.
MIRA LO QUE HAS HECHO
A six-episode, half hour semi-autobiographical comedy co-created by Spanish late-night TV showman Berto Romero is an irony-laden, realistic and modern portrait of a contemporary couple facing the challenges of parenthood. Produced by Barcelona’s El Terrat it bows in February.
THE PLAGUE
The flagship of Movistar Plus original production era is created by Alberto Rodríguez (“Marshland”), written by Rafael Cobos and produced by Atípica Films’ José Antonio Félez. The six-part period thriller set in 1580 Seville follows a serial killer investigation that lays bare the toxic political-social context driving the crimes as well as certain home truths about human nature. Sold by Sky Vision.
SPANISH SHAME
Mixing “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Louie” comic sensibilities with Rafael Azcona-style black comedy, the sitcom, produced by Enrique López-Lavigne (“The Impossible,” “28 Weeks Later”) is directed by Juan Cavestany and Alvaro Fernández-Armero. Javier Gutiérrez (“Marshland”) portrays an inept and pretentious wedding photographer whose sexism and racism might seem farcical if they weren’t increasingly tragic.
VELVET COLLECTION
Sold by Beta Film, the Swinging ’60s set series set in a fashion house is the sequel to hit series “Velvet.” Created by Ramón Campos and Gema R. Neira, produced by Teresa Fernández-Valdés at the Studiocanal co-owned Bambu, the 10-episode, 50-minute series bowed Sept. 22 on Movistar Plus to become its most viewed series in history.
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