Natpe: Dramas from Prisma, Anima and La Maldita at Snack & Screen Argentina
Prisma Cine actioner “PR,” Anima Films’ heist adventure “The Painting” and La Maldita thriller “Wrath” figure among ten TV fiction projects to be pitched at Natpe’s Snack & Screen Argentina showcase.
The selection for Natpe underlines the highly creative moment Argentine TV drama sector is currently experiencing. Projects come from companies which have won international TV prizes or sold to Netflix, History Channel and DirecTV.
Aimed to promote the Argentine TV production sector, the event takes place Tuesday Jan. 16 at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau Hotel, organized by the Argentine INCAA film institute and the Argentina Investment & Trade Promotion Agency.
With 70% of its financing secured, “PR,” directed by Claudio Rosa and Pablo Brusa, is a high-profile Argentina-Brazil TV project produced by Antonio Pita and Paola Suárez.
From the Argentine side, the co-production teams Pita’s Prisma Cine, Suárez’s Germina Films with Bonaparte Cine and StoryLab, the outfit run by Diego Palacio and Nacho Viale whose TV drama “Stockholm” became the first Argentine series to bow on Netflix. Brazil’s Plural Filmes, a regular co-producer on international projects, is also on board.
“PR” turns on Gabriel Fontán, a public relations professional – played by Mariano Bertolini (“Focus”) – who plans an event to promote the brand of a dear friend, Brazilian surfer world champion Nando Oliveira (“Tropa de Elite”’s Cassio Nascimento). What Fontán doesn’t know is that the event is a front for smuggling ecstasy from Brazil to Argentina in surf-boards stored at Gabriel’s house in Argentina, Gabriel is soon on the run. pursued by corrupt police officers, DEA agents, local intelligence services and Brazilian hitmen.
Rolling from Jan. 15, the producers are looking for the remaining 30% to complete “PR” financing, Suárez said.
Anima Films producer Julián Rousso won a 2016 International Emmy Award for Non-English Language U.S. Primetime Program with docu-fiction series “Francis, the Jesuit,” shared with History Channel Latin America, ClaroVideo, DirecTV and Telemundo.
At Natpe, Rousso will pitch “The Painting,” a thriller co-helmed by “Francis”-director Matías Gueilburt, which has already earned support from INCAA for HD production.
“The Painting” is set in Casablanca in 1914. On the eve of WW1, a group of reporters comment in a hotel bar the news of the day: In Italy, the thief who stole the Mona Lisa has been arrested. Everyone remembers the fabulous theft that years ago shocked the world, while at a nearby table a stranger follows the conversation. The stranger contacts with Jack Denker, a Sunday Times correspondent, offering to tell him the true story of the robbery.
TV thriller “Wrath” represents a new fiction bet by La Maldita Entertainment, the company behind maternity comedy “According to Roxi,” a successful web-series whose Latin American pay TV rights were acquired by Lifetime before launching via Netflix in the region.
Produced by “According to Roxi” showrunner Lucas Mirvois, which has also written the series alongside Pablo Ferreira and Victoria Miranda, “Wrath” is set in a remote village called Vet, a place dominated by century-old patriarchy.
After several sadistic murders of men respected in the community, a series of calamitous natural events occur, sparking a growing belief that the murders form part of a mythical curse.
Also in the mix is $5.4 million budgeted dramedy project “13 Apostles,” produced by Len Cole at Nativa Contenidos. The 48-part one-hour series project asks what would happen if the apostles that walked with Jesus met again in 2018.
Two web-series will also be pitched: “Queens” and “Dead Nature,” both co-financed INCAA, whose commitment with web-series can cover up to 80% of some projects’ budget.
“Queens,” created by Mariano Benito at El Alamo Films, turns on a woman cop sent to Patagonia’s Bariloche to investigate two young women skiers disappearance, which may be concerned with the local drug cartel.
Set up at Sofie Szelske’s Activar Cámara and directed by Diego Leanza, “Dead Nature” has a young YouTuber losing his cell phone and buying another who is able to register ghosts.
Further comedies include “The Asteroides, Best Team in History,” produced by Luciano Olivera at Zooming, and directed by Andrés Irigoyen. Structured as a eight-seg 24-minute miniseries, set in 1979 in a soccer club in the south of Buenos Aires, it highlights the value of collective effort, human ingenuity and camaraderie.
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