Celeste (Movistar Plus+)
Six-part comedy thriller Celeste is loosely based on the well-documented financial travails of Colombia’s music superstar Shakira, a decade ago. Carmen Machi, whose credits include Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embracesand Emilio Martinez Lazaro’s Spanish Affair, plays a tax inspector on the verge of retirement who faces her most high-profile case: she must prove Latina star Celeste lives in Spain for more than half the year, thereby requiring her to pay taxes in the country. The cast also includes Manolo Solo, Andrea Bayardo and Antonio Duran.
The series has been created by Spanish Affair’s co-writer Diego San Jose and is directed by Elena Trapé, who won awards at Malaga Film Festival for The Enchanted (best screenplay) in 2023 and The Distances (best Spanish film and director) in 2018.
“Celeste is a thriller with touches of comedy and an adorable protagonist,” says Trapé. It is scheduled to launch later this year, and is a Movistar Plus+ original series in co-production with 100 Balas, a subsidiary of The Mediapro Studio, which is handling international distribution.
Contact: Javier Esteban Loring, The Mediapro Studio Distribution
I, Addict (Disney+)
Author Javier Giner and Celeste director Elena Trapé have collaborated on six-part series I, Addict, based on the book of the same name about Giner’s attempts to overcome addiction. He hit rock bottom through his twenties and, in a desperate attempt to get clean, voluntarily entered a rehabilitation centre at the age of 30.
Oriol Pla, whose film credits include Creatura and Wild Flowers, stars in the series alongside Nora Navas, Alex Brendemühl, Victoria Luengo, Ramon Barea and Itziar Lazkano.
Giner co-created the TV adaptation of I, Addict with Aitor Gabilondo, and the pair co-wrote with Jorge Gil Munarriz and Alba Carballal. Giner and Trapé direct the series. It is produced by Alea Media, a company set up in 2017 by broadcaster Mediaset España and Gabilondo for Disney+.
Contact: Alea Media
Los 39 (Secuoya Studios)
This period epic is the anticipated next project from fast-growing Secuoya Studios, which in January tapped former Sony Pictures Television International executive Brendan Fitzgerald as CEO.
Inspired by the novel The Loss Of Paradise by Jose Luis Muñoz Jimeno, Los 39 is set in 1492 as one of Christopher Columbus’s ships runs aground north of the Caribbean island La Española (aka Hispaniola), leaving 39 sailors to their fate. The story follows the year-long interval between the landing and the return of Columbus to the island, where he finds only death and destruction. The six-part series began shooting last April in Colombia, and continues in the Canary Islands and Huelva in Spain.
Hugo Silva, Pablo Derqui, Diego Vasquez and Akima Maldonado star in Los 39, which is directed by Max Lemcke and Jorge Saavedra. Colombia’s Martha Godoy is executive producer on the series, which also involves Spanish public broadcaster RTVE.
Contact: Maria Garcia-Castrillon, Secuoya Studios
Mariliendre (Atresplayer)
Created by Javier Ferreiro, who also serves as director, this musical drama stars Blanca Martinez as a former diva of Madrid’s gay nightclub scene, who, 10 years on, faces up to her father’s death and her own dull life. She is prompted to reconnect with her group of gay friends, reminiscing about the past, exploring her identity and laying the foundations for her future.
Mariliendre is produced by Atresmedia TV’s streaming service Atresplayer with Suma Content, the label of directing duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (aka Los Javis), responsible for hits such as Veneno and Cardo. Los Javis have earned acclaim for LGBTQ+ stories that fuse an auteur-driven approach with mainstream appeal. Veneno, in 2020, was the third Atresplayer series and a catalyst for the platform’s success, selling to Max for the US. Mariliendre will be available to stream from December.
Contact: Suma Content
The New Years (Movistar Plus+)
Echoes of David Nicholls’ novel (and Netflix hit) One Day abound in 10-part The New Years, which takes place every year on January 1 for a decade. With episodes directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, the story follows a woman (Iria del Rio) who feels she is struggling to get her life together, and a man (Francesco Carril) who believes his is under control. Both are close to turning 30: she lives in a shared apartment, hates her job and often changes her social group; he is a dedicated doctor with loyal friends and a casual romance. The pair meet, fall in love and begin a relationship.
“The New Years was always conceived as a cinematographic work,” says Sorogoyen, one of Spain’s leading filmmakers with credits including The Beasts (2022).
Movistar Plus+ International handles international distribution outside of Spain and France, on the Movistar Plus+ original in association with Sorogoyen’s Caballo Films and Arte France. The New Years screened in full at this year’s Venice Film Festival, and was created by Sorogoyen, Sara Cano and Paula Fabra. Sorogoyen directs four episodes, while the rest are helmed by Sandra Romero and David Martin de los Santos.
Contact: Fabrizia Palazzo, Movistar Plus+ International
Puberty (Max)
This six-part family drama explores the fallout in a community when three young teenagers are accused of sexual assault. Puberty asks whether a 13-year-old child can be a sexual predator and, if so, who is responsible: the child, the family or society? The story takes place over a Catalonian summer, backdropped by the traditional building of human towers (castell) during the festival season.
Puberty is created and lead-directed by Leticia Dolera, who was also behind the Canneseries 2019 double winner Perfect Life. “In puberty, sexuality and the changes in our bodies affect us deeply and make us vulnerable,” Dolera says. “In a social context where, on the one hand, everything is pornified and objectified and, on the other, sex and intimacy remain taboo, how do adolescents approach something as intimate and radical as sexuality? Are we prepared to support them?”
Dolera also stars in the series with Xavi Saez, Betsy Tunez and Alexandra Russo. Co-writing credits go to Almudena Monzu, David Gallart and Manuel Burque. It is produced by Barcelona-based Distinto Films and Corte y Confeccion de Peliculas, with Catalan broadcaster TV3Cat for Max.
Contact: Distinto Films
Querer (Movistar Plus+)
The word ‘querer’ has several meanings in Spanish, including ‘to wish’, ‘to love’ and ‘to want’. Basque director Alauda Ruiz de Azua is the creative force behind this four-episode series that debuted at San Sebastian Film Festival this year.
Produced by Feelgood Media and Kowalski Films for Movistar Plus+, the four-part Querer tells the story of a woman who leaves her husband after a 30-year marriage and reports him for continued rape, shattering a seemingly conventional family. The couple’s two children must decide whether to believe their mother or support their father, who denies the accusations.
“We wanted to push the boundaries of questions about sexual consent and engage the viewer as if they were another member of this family,” explains Ruiz de Azua. The series stars Nagore Aranburu, Pedro Casablanc, Miguel Bernardeau, Ivan Pellicer and Loreto Mauleon.
Ruiz de Azua’s feature debut Lullaby premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama in 2022, going on to win the best new director award at the Goyas. She co-wrote Querer with Eduard Sola and Julia de Paz, a Screen International Spain Star of Tomorrow in 2023.
Contact: Fabrizia Palazzo, Movistar Plus+ International
Sanctuary (Atresplayer)
An eight-part sci-fi thriller scrutinising the concept of motherhood in the future, Sanctuary is an adaptation of a popular Spanish podcast by series creators Manuel Bartual and Carmen Pacheco.
In the aftermath of a natural disaster, Aura Garrido plays a specialised AI engineer with strong ethical convictions who must reconsider her ideals when offered work at the Sanctuary, a place reserved for pregnant women. Lucia Guerrero plays a woman arriving at the facility when she is three months pregnant, and begins to suspect things are not entirely what they seem.
“You can always tackle hot and current issues through science fiction,” says Bartual.
Gallardon and Zoe Berriatua direct the series, which is produced by Atresmedia TV via its premium content platform Atresplayer in partnership with Pokeepsie Films, the production outfit of Alex de la Iglesia and Carolina Bang.
Contact: Pokeepsie
Scar (Plano a Plano)
The six-part thriller Scar was filmed in the Basque country and Serbia, and tells the story of man (Juanlu Gonzalez) about to earn a fortune by selling his invention of a cutting-edge algorithm to a big corporation. At the same time he joins a dating app and falls in love with a mysterious Ukrainian woman, played by Milena Radulovic.
The series has been created by Veronica Marza, Pablo Roa and Fernando Sancristobal, based on a bestselling Spanish novel of the same name by Juan Gomez-Jurado.
Roa and Sancristobal previously worked together on Money Heist and Top Boy for Netflix. Scar’s directors are action-thriller specialist Miguel Angel Vivas, Cuban filmmaker Alejandro Bazzano and Manuel Carvallo.
The series is produced by Spain’s Plano a Plano with Asacha Media Group. The broadcasting partners are Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, Mexico’s Dopamine, Prime Video, Serbia’s Adrenalin and Telekom Srbija, Poland’s Canal+ and CLT-UFA SA Hungarian Broadcasting Division. It will air on RTVE in Spain later this year.
Contact: Plano a Plano info@planoaplano.es
Superstar (Netflix)
The six-part Superstar depicts Tamara, a Spanish singer who became a cult TV icon in the 2000s. She was later known as Ambar and now as Yurena. Sweden-born Spanish actress Ingrid Garcia-Jonsson, who starred in Jaime Rosales’s Beautiful Youth, stars as Tamara, with a supporting cast led by Natalia de Molina, Secun de la Rosa and Pepon Nieto.
The series is produced by Suma Content for Netflix — which has yet to confirm a release date — and was co‑created by Nacho Vigalondo, whose Daniela Forever world premiered this year at Toronto International Film Festival. Claudia Costafreda, a rising talent behind hits including Veneno and Cardo, co-created the series. Vigalondo and Costafreda wrote it with Maria Bastaros and Paco Bezerra.
“There’s nothing we like more than pop culture and looking back at the history of our country,” says producer Javier Calvo. “If there were a wild time when everything was possible, it was the time of ‘Tamarism’, when the most unexpected protagonists hoarded hours of television.”
Contact: Suma Content
When Nobody Sees Us (Max)
Eight-part crime thriller When Nobody Sees Us is Max’s first Spanish original series. The story is set during Easter 2024 in an inland village located near a US Army base in the south of Spain.
A sergeant in the civil guards (played by Maribel Verdu) is investigating the unexpected death of a neighbour, apparently by suicide, and finds possible links to strange events that occurred during an Easter procession. Mariela Garriga plays a special agent sent to the Army base after the disappearance of a soldier. Dani Rovira and Ben Temple also star.
When Nobody Sees Us is directed by Enrique Urbizu (No Rest For The Wicked, a six-time Goya winner in 2012), who is known for his dark noirish tales. The series is based on Sergio Sarria’s novel of the same name. Daniel Corpas is the creator, working with a writing team led by Arturo Ruiz Serrano. It is produced by Zeta Studios for Warner Bros Discovery in Spain. Antonio Asensio, Paloma Molina and Salvador Yagüe executive produce for Zeta Studios.
Contact: WBD TV Distribution
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