Spain’s dynamic film and TV production sector is forging a new generation of creative talent. Screen showcases 12 individuals with their sights set on international careers.
Actors
Omar Ayuso
Omar Ayuso’s original ambition was to make films from behind the camera rather than in front. But attending a casting call on a whim while on a media studies course at university changed the course of his career.
At just 19 years old, he landed a lead role in the first season of Netflix’s Spanish-language teen drama Elite. “[The show] was my first film school, it opened all the doors for me,” says Ayuso. “It has been instrumental in the careers of many actors of my generation.”
He still stars in Elite, now in its eighth and final season, and has also taken roles in other projects including Julia de Castro and Maria Gisele Royo’s indie feature On The Go, selected for Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present in 2023. He also appeared in the music video ‘Juro Que’ with singer Rosalia in 2020.
This year, Ayuso will be seen in two further television series. I, Addict is premiering at San Sebastian International Film Festival and is created by Aitor Gabilondo and Javier Giner, the author of the book that inspired it. Meanwhile, Mariliendre is a queer musical comedy produced by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo (aka Los Javis), which finished shooting in July and will stream on Atresmedia TV’s streaming service Atresplayer.
Ayuso’s role required lots of singing and dancing, which involved intensive training. “Before this, my only knowledge of dancing was clubbing,” he says with a smile.
Contact: Garay Talent
Francesco Carril
Madrid-based Francesco Carril stars alongside Iria del Rio in the upcoming Movistar Plus+ series The New Years, created by Rodrigo Sorogoyen (see page 18). The series, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, follows the relationship of a couple across 10 years, catching up with them every New Year’s Eve. Carril plays one half of the couple, a hospital doctor.
As an established theatre actor and director himself, Carril enjoyed working collaboratively with Sorogoyen. “He knows how to help you be truthful and shares his artistic choices, even the optics he is going to use, to involve you in the creative process,” says Carril. “After working with him, I truly feel [like I’m] a better actor.”
Carril, who is fluent in English and Italian (his mother is Italian), secured his first film role in 2012 for Jonas Trueba’s The Wishful Thinkers. He has since worked with the director on four further films including The Other Way Around, winner of the Europa Cinemas Label at this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.
Carril can also be seen in Isabel Coixet’s Un Amor, which played in competition at last year’s San Sebastian. His most recent project is Cesc Gay’s upcoming feature My Friend Eva, which is sold internationally by Filmax.
Contact: Majos
Angela Cervantes
This is the year Angela Cervantes has moved from supporting to lead actress. She has built a career in film, television and theatre, securing Goya nominations in 2023 for best supporting actress in Pilar Palomero’s Motherhood (La Maternal) and best new actress in 2022 for Carol Rodriguez’s Girlfriends (Chavalas).
Cervantes recently wrapped thriller series El Mal Invisible, which is set during the Covid lockdown and stars the actress as a detective hunting a serial killer in the deserted streets of Barcelona. The series is a co-production between The Mediapro Studio and Catalan public broadcaster TV3CAT, with international sales handled by The Mediapro Studio Distribution.
Coming up are several features by debut directors. Cervantes stars in Gemma Blasco’s Fury, about a young actress who is sexually assaulted at a New Year’s Eve party, and tries to channel her pain through theatre. It is produced by Ringo Media and sold internationally by Filmax.
“The biggest challenge has been to take on my first lead,” says Cervantes, whose brother is actor Alvaro Cervantes. “You feel the weight of responsibility on your shoulders, especially with such [heavy] subject matter.”
Cervantes has also starred with Laia Manzanares in Gala Gracia’s rural drama Lo Que Queda De Ti Is, from Potenza Producciones with Bastian Films, Fado Filmes in Portugal, Sajama Films and Garbo Produzioni in Italy.
Contact: Walter Garcia
Carla Diaz
Carla Diaz made her acting debut aged eight in a chocolate commercial, going on to work on TV series including Netflix’s Elite. The teen drama led directly to her first feature — Nele Müller-Stöfen’s Delicious, also for Netflix — after the director’s daughter saw Diaz in Elite.
The film, shot mainly in English with some French, is about a German family whose summer in their French villa is disrupted when they take in an injured woman.
Diaz also had a small part in TV show La Mesías, having signed up before even reading the script, looking to work with the creative forces behind the Movistar Plus+ series, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo (aka Los Javis).
Diaz will next be seen in Julio Medem’s 8, handled by Latido Films, playing two characters in a cast led by Ana Rujas and Javier Rey.
Contact: Borial Management
Alvaro Rico
Alvaro Rico is part of the Netflix Elite squad, having appeared in the first three seasons. He has also starred in Manolo Caro’s Holy Family (Sagrada Familia) and Daniel Calparsoro’s thriller Sky High as well as science-fiction drama Invasión by David Martin-Porras.
Rico will take the lead in upcoming Spanish-language Netflix series The Gardener (El Jardinero), as a man who runs a strange garden centre with his mother where customers can order a murder alongside their plants. “I gave this character my all,” Rico says of the series, which also stars Cecilia Suarez and Catalina Sopelana.
Rico has also been involved in series The Lawyers (Las Abogadas), produced by Spanish public broadcaster TVE and Mod Producciones and created by the late writer/director Patricia Ferreira. Inspired by true events, it tells the story of a group of young female lawyers who fought for freedom and justice during the last years of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain.
Rico has also been busy shooting La Buena Suerte — an adaptation of the Rosa Montero novella of the same name, from director Gracia Querejeta — alongside Megan Montaner and Hugo Silva.
Contact: Carlos Ramos, Cram Talent
Carolina Yuste
Carolina Yuste won a Goya for her supporting role in Arantxa Echevarria’s 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Carmen & Lola, which “really made the industry notice me”, she says. Next came films including Daniel Calparsoro’s Sky High, Carol Rodriguez’s Girlfriends, Jaime Rosales’s Wild Flowers, as well as series Las Noches De Tefía for Atresplayer and No Traces (Sin Huellas) for Prime Video.
Yuste’s career has taken another leap this year with a best actress Goya nomination for her role in David Trueba’s Jokes & Cigarettes.
She recently starred in crime thriller Undercover (La Infiltrada), now in post-production, as a police officer infiltrating the Basque terrorist organisation ETA. Inspired by a true story, Undercover marks the fourth time Yuste has worked with director Echevarria, following Carmen & Lola, The Perfect Family and Chinas. “I feel I can take more risks as an actress because I feel safe,” says Yuste. “[Echevarria] also knows how to guide me to places I might not go initially.”
Undercover also stars Luis Tosar and is produced by Bowfinger International Pictures, Esto Tambien Pasara and Beta Fiction Spain; the latter is planning to release in Spain in October.
Yuste has also co-directed short documentary Ciao Bambina with filmmaker Afioco Gnecco, about the later process of gender transition. They are developing the short into a feature documentary, produced by Madrid-based Potenza Producciones.
“I love to be able to tell stories that interest me,” says Yuste. “If they are about people I love, even better.”
Contact: Mayte Ortega Management
Filmmakers
Lucia Aleñar Iglesias - writer/director
After attending film school at Columbia University in New York, Lucia Aleñar Iglesias’s 2020 short Forasterascreened at Critics’ Week in Cannes. She was then invited to participate in Next Step — a workshop run by Critics’ Week — to develop Forastera into a feature.
Produced by Lastor Media, Vilaüt Films and La Periferica, with Sweden’s Fox In The Snow Films, Forastera(now in post) follows a woman whose vacation is upended by the violent death of her grandmother. Lluis Homar, Zoe Stein and Nonni Ardal Hammarström star.
“Developing this feature as a separate piece from the short has given me time to think about what I wanted to show and say,” says Aleñar Iglesias. “I kept coming back to this image of a young girl turning into her grandmother because I felt like I had never seen anything like it.
“I love thrillers, films about paranoia, family dramas, romance,” she continues. “The theme of caretaking is a throughline in my work. Whether it’s in a familial context, a romantic one, professional or political, I am fascinated by the power dynamics of caregiving.”
Contact: Lastor Media
Jaume Claret Muxart - writer/director
Jaume Claret Muxart was part of the first generation of students at Elias Querejeta Film School, co-run by San Sebastian International Film Festival — where the Catalan director premiered his short Her And I in 2020.
After further shorts including Die Donau, which premiered at FIDMarseille in 2023, Claret Muxart’s feature debut Strange River is a coming-of-age story about a teen travelling with his family on the Danube river; Nausicaa Bonin and Jordi Oriol star. Produced by Spain’s Zuzu Cinema and Miramemira in co-production with Alba Sotorra and Germany’s Schuldenberg Films, Die Donau participated in labs including the Catalan Film Academy writing residency.
“For me, cinema is a way of life,” says Claret Muxart, who cites Maurice Pialat, Claire Denis and Hou Hsiao-hsien among his influences. “I like to capture the life that often passes by chance in front of the camera and transform it, because I’m not interested in naturalism. I make films with the editing process in mind, thinking about the emotion of a cut, a sound transition or an appearing light.”
Contact: Zuzu Cinema
Claudia Costafreda - writer/director
Having made several short films, Claudia Costafreda was recruited by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrosia (aka Los Javis) into the writers’ room for the 2020 TV phenomenon Veneno.
Costafreda has since been working with the Los Javis label Suma Content, teaming with actress Ana Rojas to write and direct the series Cardo, along with similar roles on episodes of Veneno’s second season. She wrote and directed several episodes of Dressed In Blue: Veneno’s second season, while The Messiah — another collaboration with Suma Content and Movistar Plus+ — played Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
Costafreda, an alumna of Barcelona’s ESCAC film school, is now directing the much-anticipated series Superstar (see page 19) alongside Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal), produced by Suma Content for Netflix.
“What interests me the most has to do with specific portrayals within very particular universes,” says Costafreda. “I prefer anonymous characters around us instead of heroic and stereotypical ones.
“I am fascinated by popular culture, how the world of television, sometimes so discredited, is filled with great stories that can become part of everyone’s imagination,” she adds. “I like the very human and the very ‘acidic’.”
Contact: Suma Content
Pedro Martin-Calero - writer/director
Pedro Martin-Calero studied photography at Madrid’s prestigious ECAM film school before going on to direct music videos and short films, as well as a futuristic adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar for the British Council, and psychological horror You Are Awake for Channel 4.
Martin-Calero’s feature debut The Wailing screens at San Sebastian and follows three young women who are haunted by an evil entity. Ester Exposito, Mathilde Ollivier and Malena Villa star in the horror film, which will be released by Universal Pictures International in Spain and is being sold internationally by Film Factory. The producers are Spain’s Caballo Films, Setembro Cine and Tandem Films, in partnership with Argentina’s Tarea Fina and France’s Noodles Production.
Written by Martin-Calero and Isabel Peña, The Wailing is a film “where every frame is designed to generate tension in the viewer gradually”, says the filmmaker.
Martin-Calero aims to make pictures with popular appeal and a strong personal perspective. “I like to start with genre, with horror, thriller, and take the story to places that do not belong to the archetypes of those genres,” he says. “I try to create something I have never seen before and play with the viewer’s expectations.”
Contact: Canadacanada
Denise Moreno - writer/director
Spanish writer, director and actress Denise Moreno saw her black comedy series Estrella Del Green, produced by the UK’s Common People Films, awarded the Series Mania prize at the ECAM forum co-production market in Madrid earlier this year. The project had previously been selected by TorinoFilmLab’s SeriesLab in 2023, and was a semi-finalist at the HBOAccess Directing Fellowship.
Estrella Del Green focuses on the dynamics of two headstrong Spanish women, a young millennial and an older woman in her seventies, who meet when they are at the end of their proverbial tether and find themselves working together towards a common goal. It is set in the Mediterranean coastal town of Benidorm.
“Benidorm is the extravagant melting pot of a Spanish beach, Brits looking for booze, and multicultural gangsters,” says the London-based filmmaker, with a laugh.
Moreno’s further credits include short films (Sisters, When It Rains, It Pours), web series (The Self-Tapers), video clips and commercials. She is also developing a feature — a road-trip comedy-drama set in Spain in the 1990s.
“I love working with unconventional characters, often female outcasts that defy gender stereotypes and ageism,” says Moreno. “And to make comedies.”
Contact: Denise Moreno
Sergi Perez - writer/director
Having seen New Dress — his graduation film from Barcelona’s ESCAC film school — win prizes at Sitges and Malaga, and his feature debut The Long Way Home win best film at Catalonia’s Gaudi Awards, Sergi Perez is now working on his follow-up feature Memorial.
The story follows a curator of Flemish paintings at the Prado museum, who accompanies a painting by Rubens on its journey to Belgium, all while facing his own personal turmoil.
“The choice of a museum curator as a character is especially relevant, not only for the immersion in the art world but also because he is the clearest metaphor for the preservation of collective memory,” says Perez, who cites Anatomy Of A Fall and The Zone Of Interest as two of his influences.
Memorial, which is being produced by Edna Cinema, Sumendi Filmmaker, Team Prods and France’s Noodles, participated in the first Co-Production ECAM Forum held in June, where it received the Filmin Award, a $34,000 (€30,000) prize given as a minimum guarantee by the local streamer. The jury praised the project, stating it “masterly combines family, memories and art in a physical and spiritual journey”.
Contact: Sergi Perez
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