Spain’s Mediacrest, Finland’s ReelMedia, YLE Co-Develop Climate Change Thriller Series ‘17kHz’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Spanish TV production house Mediacrest is joining forces with Helsinki-based outfit ReelMedia and Finnish public broadcaster YLE to develop climate change thriller series project “17kHz.”
The co-production model resulting from the “17kHz” development deal will be one focus at the showcase “Spanish Fiction Contents: New Releases & Financial Opportunities,” which takes place Feb. 20 at Berlin’s European Film Market.
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Organized by ICEX Spain Trade & Investment, the meeting’s panelists will include Mediacrest‘s executives Gustavo Ferrada and Winnie Baert.
Created by Spanish writers Carlos Molinero (“3 Caminos,” “Cuéntame cómo pasó”) and Paula Sánchez (“Yrreal”), “17kHz” series will comprise three seasons of seven-episode each.
Targeting YA audiences and set in four different countries, the series is described by Mediacrest as an “insurgent thriller,” which follows a group of concerned teenagers plotting to halt climate change and pursuing worldwide rebellion as the only way to save the planet’s future.
Working hand in hand with YLE and ReelMedia on the “17 kHz” project marks a milestone for Mediacrest, according to the company’s fiction head, Gustavo Ferrada.
“Firstly, it lends further strength to our international outlook. Right from the outset we have created this story as a project aimed at the international market, and one which needed international partners.”
“Secondly” – he continued – “because we are working with partners from Finland, a country in appearance so culturally different from Spain, but with whom we share enthusiasm, a shared vision and the need to address the series’ central theme.”
“17kHz” creators Molinero and Sánchez highlight that it deals with a pressing issue today, climate change, “from a fresh perspective: This is an extreme thriller that makes us question ourselves, pitching young people against adults for the planet’s salvation.”
One of Spain’s fastest-rising indie TV companies, Madrid and Barcelona-based Mediacrest has already signed fiction and entertainment deals with further international players such as ViX, Freemantle, ITV, NHK and Viacom.
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