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Rapidly building a packed sales slate at Berlin, Filmax has pounced on “Leo & Lou,” a feel-good road movie set against the stunning, windswept landscapes of Galicia in northern Spain and produced by Zeta Studios, producer of Netflix hit “Elite.”

Filmax will unveil first-look images at Berlin’s European Film Market.

In the film, Leo, described as a mute young orphan girl with a world of thoughts inside her, and Lou, a jaded, middle-aged nihilist, take a journey together. “As their paths intertwine, an unbreakable bond forms, one built on trust, compassion and adventure,” Filmax said in a statement.

“Lou & Leo” toplines Isak Férriz, key cast in Netflix global hit “Burning Body,” and Julia Sulleiro. Written by Carlos C. Tomé and Carlos Solano, “Leo & Lou” marks Solano’s debut as a feature film director after his Goya-nominated short film “Strangers on the Road.”

The ensemble also features Manuel Manquiña (“Airbag...

Julio Medem, one of Spain’s most distinctive cinematic voices, returns to the spotlight at Berlin’s European Film Market with “8,” an ambitious and formally daring film that spans 90 years of Spanish history through the intertwined lives of Octavio and Adela.

Javier Rey (“Cocaine Coast”) stars as Octavio, while Ana Rujas, acclaimed for her role in Los Javis’ “La Mesías,” plays Adela. Produced by Spain’s Morena Films, behind box office hits “Cell 211” and “Champions,” with Barbazul la película Aie, Eidan Produce and Quexito Films, the feature is sold by Latido Films.

“I proposed to tell the story of Octavio and Adela’s 90 years in eight chapters, and that each one would be a sequence shot, so that the time spent in each would be ‘a while’,” Medem told Variety. The director’s approach is rooted in the idea that “the only one who has a complete and...

The Last Night at Tremore Beach has dropped on Netflix, and the show has everything it takes to become the next sensation for the streaming service. It is directed by none other than Oriol Paulo, who gained quite a reputation thanks to the 2016 blockbuster The Invisible Guest, along with The Body, (2012) Mirage, (2017) God’s Crooked Lines, (2022) and the Netflix miniseries The Innocent (2021). The man’s work speaks volumes, and it can safely be said that The Last Night at Tremore Beach pretty much justifies the hype. The series focuses on Alex, a composer who moves to a coastal town after a fatal accident to get his mojo back. Obviously, it is much more than that. In this article, we are going to take a closer look at the cast and the characters they play in the show.

Spoilers Ahead

Javier Ray as Alex

Actor Javier Ray – whose most notable work so...

Streaming giant Netflix unveiled an ambitious slate of eight upcoming Spanish films at the recent San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain. The company is investing heavily in original Spanish-language content to attract global viewers. The diverse collection features thriller, drama, and family films from established and up-and-coming directors.

One highly anticipated thriller is “The Black Widow” directed by Carlos Sedes. The film follows a murder investigation in Valencia that uncovers an unexpected suspect. Sedes is known for his crime TV shows “Fariña” and “The Asunta Case.” David Victori also debuts his psychological thriller “Firebreak” about a family tormented by disturbing events while selling their summer home. Eva Vives directs the procedural thriller “The Unknown” which promises to offer complex characters.

Several remakes and period pieces are in the works. Fernando González Molina tackles a reboot of the 1973 Oscar-nominated film “My Dear Miss” exploring modern Spanish identity. Cesc Gay directs “53 Sundays,...

Netflix Spain unveiled two new film projects at the San Sebastian International Film Festival that it is producing with Spanish filmmakers and production companies.

Carlos Sedes’ La Viuda Negra (which translates as The Black Widow) is being produced by Ramón Campos’ film and TV outfit Bambú Producciones, whose credits include Cable Girls and Isaki Lacuesta’s One Year, One Night.

The race-against-time thriller is about a body found in a parking lot in Valencia and the unexpected suspect the investigation digs up. It is now in pre-production.

Sedes is best known for TV series Fariña and, more recently, The Asunta Case.

San Sebastian — At one of the biggest industry gatherings at this year’s San Sebastián Festival, Netflix has announced new Spanish movies from “Cable Girls” showrunner Ramón Campos and “Cross the Line” director David Victori, as it unveiled new talent details on four other banner titles.

Produced by Ramón Campos at his Madrid-based label Bambú Producciones, also behind “Grand Hotel,” “Velvet” and “Fariña,” and directed by Carlos Sedes “The Asunta Case,” “Cable Girls”), murder mystery “La Viuda Negra” begins with a body stabbed seven times is discovered in a car park in Valencia. The prime suspect for the city’s Homicide Group is Maje, the dead man’s Maje, young and kind widow to whom the deceased had been married for less than a year.

Billed as a psychological thriller, Victori’s “Cortafuego” is produced by Anxo Rodríguez y Ferrán Tomás of ESpotlight Media and stars a topnotch cast of Joaquín Furriel,...

La Termita Films, the production label of double San Sebastian Golden Shell winners Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo, has struck a production alliance with Accidental Films, the newly formed label founded by Sara Gonzalo, managing director over 2011-24 of production powerhouse Bambu Producciones.

The alliance catches Lacuesta and Campo at new career highs, Lacuesta having directed Berlin competition player “One Year, One Night” and “Saturn Return,” a Spanish Film and Direction winner at March’s Malaga Festival; Campo co-wrote Iciar Bollain’s anticipated “I’m Nevenka,” which world premieres in San Sebastian main competition this weekend.

Gonzalo served as general manager at Bambú when it moved into ever larger industrial propositions from 2011-13’s “Grand Hotel” to “Velvet” (2013-15), “Cable Girls” (2017-20) and “Fariña” (2018), driving an acceptance in international of original Spanish series without the need to be dubbed into neutral Spanish in Latin America.

She is joined at Accidental,...

Barcelona-based studio Filmax has scooped international rights to “Just One Small Favor,” the new film from Zeta Studios, which is behind Netflix smash hit “Elite” and HBO Max Spanish banner title “García!”

Released in Spain by Universal on Nov. 10, “Favor” will receive its market premiere at this week’s American Film Market.

Directed by Juana Macías (“We Are Pregnant”), the acerbic screwball family comedy is set at the swanky summer home of the well-off Gallardos, cared for meticulously by Amparito, a second mother to the three children.

In her dying wish, she asked to be buried in the family vault. When the Gallardos refuse, they receive letters from Amparito, revealing skeletons in the closet and damaging home truths, turning their lives upside down.

“‘Just One Small Favor,’ is a screwball, situation comedy, with acerbic wit and a good dose of bad blood,” said Macías.

“The whole story plays out over one,...

European production-distribution giant Studiocanal is teaming with Spain’s Mr. Fields and Friends and Bambú, both led by producer Ramón Campos, on dramatic comedy “Rondallas,” written-directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo.

Sánchez Arévalo, one of Spain’s foremost crossover filmmakers, is coming back with “Rondallas” to a movie project oriented to classic cinema theater exhibition and distribution, after creating and directing a feature film and a TV series for Netflix.

Studiocanal will handle worldwide sales on “Rondallas,” scheduled to roll from March in Galicia, Northern Spain, with a still undisclosed cast.

“Rondallas” is produced by Campos, creator and executive producer of flagship Spanish TV dramas such as “Gran Hotel,” “Velvet,” “Cable Girls” and “Fariña,” all set up at his Madrid-based Bambú, one of the most game-changing of TV production companies in Spain, and partially owned by Studiocanal.

With dedicated film production house Mr Fields and Friends, Campos has produced titles such...

Coming Next from Spain, a showcase of five series, unspooled at Series Mania on March 21 just after a Spanish series, “Wrong Side of the Tracks” from Mediaset España and Alea Media, had scored 149.6 million watching hours in three weeks on Netflix for Seasons 1 and 2.

That platform connection and power of Spanish series threaded most of the series and much of the commentary at Tuesday’s Next from Spain, supported by Audiiovisual from Spain.

At least in terms of titles now ready to hit the market, there’s little sign as yet of platform pullback in Spain. Rather, it remains a ground zero in the streamer wars.

2023 will see the release of 70 new Spanish scripted series and 27 returning seasons of titles such as “Elite” “Rapa” “30 Coins” and “Veneno,” presenter Irene Jiménez, at Audiovisual 451, told a Next From Spain audience.

Of these new titles, 36% will be produced by linear TV broadcasters,...

The stars are aligning on political thriller “The Chauffeur’s Son,” a six-part series from acclaimed Spanish creative duo Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo.

It is one of five projects that has pulled down a muscular €1.5 million (1.6 million) grant from Catalonia’s Icec film-tv aimed at ensuring potential production partners that the series can bring series money to the table.

It comes after the two which won two Golden Shells at San Sebastian, for “The Double Steps” (2011) and “Between Two Waters” (2018), have demonstrated their chops for directing broad audience drama series, directing and in Campo’s case writing two episodes in Movistar+’s series “Offworld,” a Variety 2022 Best International TV Series.

“Elite’s” Zeta Studios is producing “The Chauffeur’s Son.” It has also been selected to compete at this year’s Berlinale Series Market’s Co-Pro Series, one of Europe’s foremost drama series project showcases. It hits the pitching session on Feb.

Apple TV+ today announced a six-episode series order for “Land of Women,” the new dramedy inspired by award-winning author Sandra Barneda’s best selling novel of the same name. Created and written by Iris Award winners Ramón Campos and Gema R. Neira, Golden Globe nominee Eva Longoria will star in the leading role as Gala and executive produce via her UnbeliEVAble Entertainment banner. Legendary film and television star Carmen Maura joins the cast as Gala’s mother Julia. The series is currently in pre-production in Spain. “Land of Women” is a dramedy starring Eva Longoria as Gala, a New York empty nester whose life is turned upside down when her husband implicates the family in financial improprieties, and she is forced to flee the city alongside her aging mother and college-age daughter. To escape the dangerous criminals to whom Gala’s now vanished husband is indebted, the three women hide...

World premiering in the main Canneseries competition, “El Inmortal – Gangs of Madrid” marks the latest original series from Movistar Plus, the Spanish pay TV/SVOD arm of Telefonica, made with Banijay’s Dlo Producciones and Telemundo Streaming Studios. Beta Film handles international distribution.

It shows. A Movistar Plus hallmark, “El Inmortal” reflects a real-life Spanish reality, the rise and fall – or here, fall and rise, then maybe fall and rebound – of the founding leader of Los Miami, a gang which controlled Madrid’s insatiable ‘90s drug business. José Antonio’s real-life counterpart survived four attempts on his life, becoming a legend and gaining his epic sobriquet.

But it also nails other facets of high-end scripted fiction.

“El Inmortal” begins as quiet-spoken ‘90s Madrid drug lord José insists on living his life, driving his infant daughter to her posh primary school.

Just after dropping her off, a motorbike passes spraying bullets,...

Barcelona-based mini studio Filmax has acquired the international rights to Spanish-Portuguese co-production “The Open Body,” a horror story set in the early 20th century and plumbing Galician folk lore. The film marks the feature debut of Spanish director Ángeles Huerta.

Co-produced by Spain’s Ollovivo and Fasten Films, producer of Jorge Dorado’s “Pastor,” and Portugal’s Cinemate, behind Norberto López-Amado’s “3 Caminos,” the film is currently in post-production.

Buyers will have the opportunity to watch a first promo at this year’s Malaga Festival Spanish Screenings, which run March 21-24.

A new genre movie at Malaga, whatever its phase of production, is near bound to be on many buyers radar after Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s “The Platform” (“El Hoyo”) was presented at Málaga’s Work In Progress in 2019, where it was acquired by Latido Films.

Sold to Netflix, it became the most watched non English language film in the U.

Spanish media giant Atresmedia is joining forces with Portocabo, the production outfit behind Movistar Plus hit series “Hierro,” for a remake of Showtime drama “Your Honor,” starring Bryan Cranston.

The Spanish redo is currently at the script stage and initiating casting.

With an undisclosed number of episodes, the project production is scheduled to kick off this year.

The TV series release date is still unknown. But it would be logical for it to launch on platform Atresplayer Premium before airing on Atresmedia’s free-to-air channel Antena 3 primetime, a windowing strategy usually followed by the group with its new fiction releases since Atresplayer Premium bowed in 2019.

“Your Honor” is based on the Israeli TV drama “Kvodo,” created by Ron Ninio and Shlomo Mashiach, and aired first on Israel’s paybox Yes TV.

The U.S. version was developed by Peter Moffat for Showtime and stars “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston,...

For the seventh consecutive year, the Filmarket Hub platform and Catalonia’s Sitges Festival are co-organizing the Sitges Pitchbox, an international pitching event focused on genre feature films and series currently in development.

New this year, the traditional pitching competition will be complemented by the Showrunners Lab, an introductory and advisory seminar on the role of showrunner in series production. Prominent showrunners from the U.S., Scandinavia and Spain will offer up firsthand knowledge of their craft and advise aspiring young professionals interested in the field.

Filmarket Hub have confirmed that Nick Antosca from the U.S. and Teresa Fernández-Valdés from Spain will make up two-thirds of its mentorship group, with a third to be confirmed soon.

Antosca is a screenwriter, producer and writer who has spent most of his professional career working in genre. His credits include HBO’s “Channel Zero” – which he created – and “Hannibal,” “Believe” and “The Act.

With so much available on Netflix these days, some of the most captivating TV comes from true crime shows. If you haven't watched all the shows on this list you're missing on some great TV. Before we get started, here are a few shows that didn't quite make the list; honorable mentions to Manhunt, Real Detective, The Innocence Files, Cocaine Coast and The Staircase.

Dirty Money

Dirty Money isn't your typical crime docuseries. In its two seasons on Netflix , it covers a wide range of corporate corruption from the Volkswagen emissions scandal to Donald Trump and Jared Kushner. It also tackles what Point Comfort, TX went through in its fight with toxic chemicals as well as taking us to Malaysia in order to discuss their 6th Prime Minister, Najib Razak, who left the country in debt due to his massive loans and big parties.

Dirty Money even goes as far...

Spain brings a robust crop of developing projects and completed titles to this year’s Cannes Film Market.

“Alcarrás” (Carla Simon)

Much anticipated after Simon’s “Summer 1993,” “Alcarrás” tracks the final harvest at a multi-generational family farm. Co-produced with Italy. Sales: MK2 Films

“Ama” (Julia de Paz Solvas)

A Malaga premiere from La Dalia Films about single motherhood and raising a child without a permanent home. Sales: Filmax

“Ane Is Missing”

(David Pérez Sañudo)

A 2021 best picture Goya nominee, Patricia López Arnáiz dominates the screen as a mother looking for her teenage daughter. Sales: Latido

“Beyond the Summit” (Ibon Cormenzana)

Javier Rey (“Fariña”) & Patricia Lopez Arnaiz (“Ane”) star in this mountain climbing metaphor for self-realization.

Sales: Filmax

“Canto Cósmico. Niño de Elche”

From Señor y Señora and Código Sur, the story of a former child prodigy flamenco singer who pushed the boundaries of the artform.

“Carpoolers” (Martín Cuervo)

A...

Madrid — On Nov 1 Netflix will drop its fifth Spanish original series, 1960’s-set drug smuggling drama “Hache,” produced by Madrid’s Weekend Studio for the platform.

Created by Verónica Fernández and directed by Jorge Torregrossa, “Hache” tells the story of Helena (Adriana Ugarte), a prostitute who ends up the favorite of powerful organized crime head Malpica (Javier Rey), a violent man with a bad leg and a morphine addiction to numb the pain.

Ambitious, headstrong and uncompromising, Helena – frequently called Hache, the Spanish pronunciation of the letter H – quickly rises to the very top of the vicious organization which oversees the Barcelona ports for heroin smuggling routes between Africa to the U.S.

Variety was given early access to the series’ first two episodes, and conducted a spoiler-free interview with Fernández and Torregrossa in Barcelona.

The series is said to be based on real events. Can you talk about the historical influences of the series?...

HBO Europe has greenlit Swedish original drama Beartown, an adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s novel of the same name, to be directed by Peter Grönlund (Goliath). Series will be produced by Filmlance International, which is part of Endemol Shine Group. The five-part one-hour series, written by Anders Weidemann, Antonia Pyk and Linn Gottfridsson, will star Ulf Stenberg and Aliette Opheim. The story follows the goings on in the small town of Beartown, which is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees surrounding it, but with the junior ice-hockey team having a shot at winning the national semi-finals, all the dreams of the town rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. It’s heavy burden that becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil.

Mark Young has been appointed chairman of Synchronicity Films. Effective immediately, Young, who...

German producer and sales group Beta Film has signed a long-term deal with cable giant Deutsche Telekom to supply high-end European series to Telekom's German streaming service Magenta TV.

The agreement, announced Monday, will include award-winning dramas such as Cacciatore – the Hunter, about Italy's war on the mafia in the 1990s, HBO Europe's Czech-language series Wasteland and Spanish crime drama Cocaine Coast.

"Deutsche Telekom has realized European high-end series to be an essential part of a successful platform strategy," said Beta Film’s managing director Moritz von Kruedener. "Often, these programs connect more with the ...

Netflix flooded its U.S. streaming service with an all-time high tonnage of original TV shows and movies in the third quarter of 2018 – a positive signal that the No. 1 subscription-video service will hit its customer-acquisition targets, according to a new report from Wall Street firm Cowen & Co.

The company bowed nearly 676 hours of originals for the quarter ended Sept. 30, which is equivalent to about 28 full days. That’s more than double the amount of Netflix originals launched in Q3 2017 (289 hours) and up 50% from 452 hours in Q2 2018, Cowen & Co. estimated. The relative quality of that glut of new content is debatable, but Netflix’s track record shows that greater amounts of exclusive programming leads to higher sub growth and lower churn.

In the most recent quarter, the company released new seasons of “Orange Is the New Black,” “Marvel’s Iron Fist” and “Bojack Horseman,” along with controversial drama “Insatiable” and Cary Fukunaga-directed psychological thriller “Maniac,...

The second season of its scripted original drama Snatch starring Rupert Grint returns to Sony Crackle on Sept. 13, with all 10 episodes available for streaming.

The series takes viewers to Spain’s Costa del Sol and follows the Hill Gang on the lam in a fight to save their fortune and their lives.

This season, Hills run afoul of the local kingpin and find themselves pressed into the malevolent crime boss’ service. The heroes attempt to outsmart their enemies even as they take over the town.

Grint, best-know for his role as Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter film franchise, returns as the utterly posh, Charlie Cavendish-Scott, alongside an ensemble cast featuring Luke Pasqualino (Skins, The Borgias) as Albert Hill, Lucien Laviscount (Scream Queens, Honeytrap) as Billy Ayres, Phoebe Dynevor (The Village, Dickensian) as Lotti Mott, Juliet Aubrey (The Infiltrator, Primeval) as Lily Hill, Tamer Hassan (House Red) as Hate ‘Em...