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When Laura Fernández Espeso sits down in Grup Mediapro’s General Director seat for the first time on January 1, it will mark the latest notable step in a career that began in indie film working with award-winning directors Francis Ford Coppola, Danis Tanović and Ken Loach. In her first interview as Mediapro’s new leader, the Spanish exec tells Deadline, “It’s an amazing opportunity, a dream come true.”

Fernández Espeso is certainly qualified. Having led the Spanish firm’s production wing to make films and shows for the likes of Prime Video, Netflix, Max, Disney+, ViX, Movistar Plus+, Atresmedia and Rtve, she has become one of the most powerful execs in Europe and Spanish-language media, even while Mediapro’s wider business faced tough challenges such as falling revenues during the global pandemic. She...

Daniel Burman’s “Transmitzvah” (2024) centers on a trans story of reclamation and ownership. There are all sorts of deferred realizations. One character may move towards an understanding of what they want but not without encountering pain and hardship. Life throws all kinds of curveballs. But the fortitude the protagonist of the film displays is sufficient to weather any storm, no matter how rough and brutal. The film recognizes the no-nonsense attitude admirably but trips in fleshing out a well-rounded dimensionality. Many scenes leave you sorely wanting a thrust, a complexity to the decisions the protagonist rushes towards.

Transmitzvah (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis: A Queer Twist on Tradition: Promise and Peril in Coming-of-Age Cinema

The Jewish coming-of-age ritual, when the child turns 13, is deliciously queered in the film. The film opens with a disruptive promise. It’s unfurled with delightful stealth that does elicit a due share of praise. But the...

Spanish studio Mediapro has unveiled its slate of English-language content in the U.S. and Canada at MIPCOM Cannes on Wednesday, including a new film written and directed by and starring John Turturro.

Head of Mediapro Studio in the U.S. and Canada J.C. Acosta spoke with 24 producer Evan Katz, head of unscripted at Mediapro Pam Healey, CEO Laura Fernandez Espeso, TV producer Ran Tellem and Oscar-winning writer-director Juan-José Campanella.

Espeso began: “Our strategic approach in the U.S. aligns perfectly with our initiatives in other key territories, emphasizing the creativity of the talent, but also relevance and reach and, of course, diversity, which is a priority in our company.” It was over to Acosta, who spoke optimistically and passionately about “writing a new chapter in the U.S. and Canada, doubling down on English language content,” after Mediapro North America was unveiled six months ago.

Their fully-fledged English-language content...

Mediapro’s fledgling North American studio unveiled a raft of new movies, series, docs and formats in a news-packed MIPCOM keynote this morning. John Turturro delivered a video address and spoke about his adaptation of Is There No Place on Earth for Me? as the Spanish media giant made a series of statement announcements.

Having unveiled Mediapro North America six months ago, CEO Laura Espeso introduced the session. Jc Acosta, Head of the Mediapro Studio U.S. & Canada, proceeded to unveil the LA, New York and Miami-based North American division of the Spanish company.

For Espeso, the move is more than just a push into another market. “It has the potential to resonate globally, influencing cultures and trends worldwide,” she told Deadline’s Stewart Clarke on stage at MIPCOM. “There is no way we will miss this opportunity. We have been working on this for the past 10 years.”

Acosta said...

Updated: John Turturro, Melissa Leo, “24” showrunner Evan Katz and Oscar winner Juan José Campanella will be joined by Tom Donahue, director of “Mafia Spies,” “The Floor” showrunner Anthony Carbone and Matt and Tina Hastings on the first English-language slate of The Mediapro Studio US & Canada.

Presented at Mipcom at a Media Mastermind session on Wednesday by The Mediapro Studio’s CEO Laura Fernández Espeso, Juan “Jc” Acosta, head of the Los Angeles-based The Mediapro Studio US & Canada, the slate represents a long-standing major gameplan announced by Fernández Espeso in 2021.

One highlight of the presentation was video message relayed on the big screen of Cannes’ Palais des Festival’s Grand Auditorium where Tuturro relayed his thoughts on his upcoming film, with The Mediapro Studio, turning on a brilliant woman who suffers schizophrenia and underscored its emotional relevance to him.

“I’ve always resisted doing one of these kind of films, because...

Madrid’s 4th Iberseries & Platino Industria’s conferences were packed, foot traffic at Madrid’s Matadero, a former slaughterhouse, was heavy. Delegates came as the industry has been facing a well documented perfect storm of rising costs and an invested pull back from streamers and broadcasters, hit respectively by cost-contention and plunging ad sales.

Yet the mood at Iberseries, which wrapped Friday, was “hopeful,” said Fremantle’s Manuel Martí. Takeaways from this year’s edition, which ran Oct. 1-4:

Spain Stands Strong

“The big slow-down hasn’t yet got to Spain,” Banijay Iberia CEO Pilar Blasco commented on an Iberseries & Platino panel. Spain’s shoot incentives are among Europe’s biggest – €10 million-€18 million ($10.9 million-$19.7 million) per TV episode. Spain had more and bigger first-half non-English Netflix hits than any other country in the world. In contrast, through September, first-run scripted series production is down in every major market in Latin America,...

Daniel Hendler’s A Loose End, Sarah Miro Fischer’s Blue Marks, and Francisco Lezama’s The Two Landscapes have taken the main prizes in the 72nd San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff) industry programme.

The awards were announced at an event on September 25.

A Loose End was presented as a project at the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in 2023 and was offered this year to buyers and potential partners in its near-completion stage.

The film is a co-production between Uruguay’s Cordon Films and Argentina’s Wanka Cine. It follows a low-ranking police officer who arrives at the border between...

For more than 70 years the San Sebastian International Film Festival has been considered the premiere hub for connecting Europe’s film industry to Latin American cinema and filmmaking talent. The festival has long supported the early works of famed Latin American filmmakers ranging from Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles to Argentina’s Daniel Burman whose respective early works Foreign Land and A Chrysanthemum Bursts in Cincoesquinas both screened at the festival.

In more recent years, Spain’s most prominent festival has made strides in strengthening the special relationship between Europe and Latin America through the creation of sections such as Works in Progress Latam (established in 2002) and its Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum (established in 2012). It was in the former that esteemed Chilean director Sebastián Lelio was given the Wip Latam Award in 2012 for his project Gloria.

“We have a very special relationship with the Latin American market,” says San Sebastian festival director José Luis Rebordinos.

Netflix Argentina executives have been promoting the upcoming slate featuring new work from Ricardo Darin, Santiago Mitre, and Juan José Campanella including series adaptations of two of the most iconic graphic novels and comic strips in Latin America.

Leading the new productions at the Made In Argentina showcase unveiled to industry members in Buenos Aires on Monday night was 27 Nights (27 Noches), Daniel Hendler’s adaptation of the family drama novel by Natalia Zito inspired by actual events.

Mitre, who wrote and directed the 2023 Oscar-nominated Argentina, 1985, will serve as producer on 27 Nights.

Campanella, the writer-director of The Secret In Their Eyes...

Buenos Aires – Mafalda, the beloved and wily six-year-old drawn into acclaim by celebrated Argentine artist Quino, will bring her socially-conscious hijinks to the screen. News of the adaptation, which will be ushered in by Oscar-winner Juan José Campanella, was announced Monday evening as Netflix unveiled their 2024 ‘Made in Argentina’ slate to a spirited crowd of industry and media professionals.

Campanella will direct, produce and showrun the project, while Gastón Gorali co-pens and acts as general producer of the Netflix Original series and Sergio Fernández boards as production director. Netflix and Campanella and Gorali’s Mundoloco CGI, the studio behind “Metegol,” the largest Latin American animated production to date, produce.

“Mafalda and her friends not only made me laugh a lot, but from time to time, they sent me to the dictionary. And each new word I learned came with the reward of a new laugh,” Campanella revealed in a July statement.

Famed Argentine director Daniel Burman’s new feature “Transmitzvah,” his first in nearly eight years, will receive a Cinéma de la Plage world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Burman first broke out internationally with a double Berlin Silver Bear win in 2004 for his fourth feature, “Lost Embrace,” and became one of Latin America’s most exportable box office draws in the following years. However, founding Oficina Burman, which was incorporated into The Mediapro Studio, his attention has shifted to creating and producing series for the past seven years, most notably Prime Video’s “Yosi, the Regretful Spy,” reckoned by many as the best title playing Berlinale Series in 2022.

“For 20 years, I made films. In my twenties, thirties, forties, I made a film every two years,” he recalled in a recent conversation with Variety. “Now, I went seven years only making series. When I went back to the...

Few companies in the world have had such as impact on their local film industry than Globo Filmes, the feature co-production arm of Brazilian giant Globo, which is Latin America’s biggest communications conglomerate. Over the last 25 years, Globo Filmes has backed more than 500 movies, almost all through co-production.

Those films have collectively sold 260 million cinema theater admissions, an average of over 10 million admissions a year, accounting for more than 70% of Brazilian market share from 1998-2024.

Globo Filmes greenlights more than 20 movies a year, powering up by far the biggest production slate of any company in Brazil, thanks to article 3A of the country’s audiovisual law, which allows it to tap tax incentives for investing in feature films.

Launching in 1998, Globo Filmes helped accelerate the Brazilian film industry’s recovery after President Fernando Collor de Mello shuttered state film agency Embrafilme in 1990, paralyzing production. Twenty-five years later, after a...

Spanish cinema is expanding, opening up attractive film avenues to reach the worldwide market, driven by upscale commercial projects, blending of genres and a new generation of emerging female directors.

The country’s filmmakers landed three Oscar nominations: Juan A. Bayona with “Society of the Snow” (inter- national feature and makeup and hair styling); and Pablo Berger with “Robot Dreams” (animated feature). Also, four of Netflix’s top five most-popular non-English films ever are from Spain.

“The boom in talent is making for a unique and very diverse cinema,” says Guillermo Farré, Movistar Plus+ head of original films and Spanish cinema.

“The great foreign perception of Spanish cinema is driven by the productions’ quality and their international diffusion,” says Elástica Films’ María Zamora, producer of Carla Simón’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner “Alcarrás.”

“Spanish cinema is evolving with the appearance of new voices especially female and new ways of narrating,...

In a big strategic market swing, The Mediapro Studio is creating new U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles to double down on U.S. and English-language production for the U.S. and global market.

Laura Fernández Espeso, The Mediapro Studio CEO, has also confirmed Juan “Jc” Acosta, the ex high-flying Paramount exec, as head of the newly created division, The Mediapro Studio U.S./Canada.

Based out of Century City, the new U.S. operation will develop, produce and distribute for a global market English-language scripted, non-scripted reality and entertainment, documentaries and features, said Fernández Espeso, Variety’s 2024 International Media Woman of the Year.

That’s exactly the same broad-based production model that The Mediapro Studio has in Spain and Latin America, she noted.

The Los Angeles operation will incorporate existing Tms offices in Miami and New York, as well as Grup Mediapro’s new production facility at Great Point Studios in Yonkers,...

Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25) has added a rendez-vouz with Italian actor and filmmaker Valeria Golino to its programme as well as two animated features and the first Cinema de la Plage titles.

Golino, whose credits include Rain Man and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, will premiere the first episode of her new series The Art Of Joy followed by an in conversation event. The series, which will screen in Italian cinemas in July, stars Jasmine Trinca, Tecla Insolia and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and follows a Sicilian woman in the early 1900s who dreams of a better life.

The actor...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled fresh news details about its 77th edition (May 14-25), including a Rendez-vous with…Valeria Golino event.

The Italian actress and director, whose 40-year career spans more than 100 acting credits, broke into directing just over a decade ago and has been invited to Cannes Official Selection twice with films Miele (2013) and Euforia (2018).

She has recently completed The Art of Joy. The adaptation of Goliarda Sapienza’s novel L’arte della gioia, was shot as a series but there is also feature-length cut which will release in cinemas in Italy later this year. The cast features Jasmine Trinca, Tecla Insolia and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.

The first episode of the series will be previewed, followed by a dialogue between Valeria Golino and the audience.

The festival also announced the first titles selected for its free Cinéma de la Plage screenings: Daniel Burman’s Transmitzvah, Jul’s Silex and the City,...

20,000 Species Of Bees, the debut film by Basque filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, and Society Of The Snow, J. A. Bayona’s survival drama for Netflix, dominated the top honors at the eleventh Platino Awards Saturday evening.

The Mexican award show took place this year at the El Gran Tlachco theater in Xcaret Park, Riviera Maya. Bayona took best director on the night for Society Of The Snow. The film also won Best Feature while 20,000 Species Of Bees nabbed Best Screenplay and Best First Feature.

20,000 Species Of Bees debuted at the Berlin Film Festival, where lead actor Sofía Otero took the silver bear for best leading performance. The film is set during a summer in a village house linked to beekeeping and follows an eight-year-old and her mother experiencing revelations that will change their lives forever.

Bayona’s Society Of The Snow closed last year’s Venice Film Festival.

In a triumphant night for Spain, J.A. Bayona’s Oscar-nominated “Society of the Snow” swept the top prizes at Platino Xcaret, named after the venue of the annual Platino Awards this year, which took place at the Xcaret Park, Riviera Maya, Mexico.

Argentina cinema’s plight, exacerbated by far-right president Javier Milei’s closure of its film institute, Incaa, was also on many people’s minds.

Citing veteran Argentine filmmaker Adolfo Aristarain as one of his inspirations, Bayona said upon receiving his best director award: “Argentina, we are here standing by your side, you’re not alone.”

Bayona’s harrowing account of the 1972 Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash, from which only 16 people survived after 72 days stranded in the Andes, became Netflix’s second most-viewed non-English film of all time. “I wouldn’t be here without the book that Pablo Vierci wrote,” said Bayona, who also thanked his cast and crew,...

Drama series set in the worlds of Eurovision and the Vatican are among the selected projects for Series Mania’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions next month.

Among the 16 titles are European six-parter Eurovision Murder Mystery, which is from France’s Apc Stories and Germany’s Friday Film. Plot details were thin, but synopsis reads: “When you have 72 hours to solve a murder, save Eurovision and the fate of Europe. Fabienne Hurst and Bertrand Soulier are writing.

Vatican, from Italy’s Fabula Pictures, follows a father investigating the suspicious death of his only son. he discovers his child was involved in a prostitution ring inside the church used by unscrupulous bishops to control the Vatican policy. Flavio Bernard, Ciro Di Maso and Marcello Olivieri are attached to write.

Fifteen of the 16 Series Mania titles were previously unannounced for the event, which takes place on March 19 as part of the Series Mania Forum.

From Namibian western to animated revenge thriller, from Bosnian family saga to a lesbian vampire breakup story, 10 upscale scripted TV projects were spotlighted at the Berlinale Series Market’s Co-Pro Series on Tuesday morning, representing “unique and bold choices with regard to genre and perspective, on top of great storytelling,” Martina Bleis, Head of the Berlinale Co-Production Market, observed before the presentation..

“This should attract buyers and co-producers now, and will surely convince discerning audiences once they have been made,”

With Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy joining climate change satire “S.O.L.,” created by late Ruth McCance, or Cannes-awarded director Aida Begić now focusing on “Mirrors,” it was a high-profile affair.

“This female family chronicle serves as a bridge between two centuries, two eras and two societies, shedding light on the hidden lives of Balkan women. Female secrets touch on taboos such as sexuality, violence and mental health. What would...

Argentina’s Daniel Burman’s international spy thriller “Witness 36” has won the coveted Series Mania Award at Co-Pro Series, the Berlinale Series Market’s annual project pitching event.

The prize consists of an invitation to the production’s team to present again at the industry centrepiece at next month’s Lille-based get-together, the Series Mania Forum’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions.

“Witness 36” joins 15 other projects at the Pitching Sessions as a sixteenth project presented out of competition in partnership with the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

The Award seems particularly appropriate, given to one of Latin America’s most prominent filmmakers, who broke out internationally with a double Berlin Silver Bear win in 2004 for his fourth feature “Lost Embrace,” but who has embraced premium drama series creation without giving up his cinema career.

Berlin also saw him announce in 2017 that Mediapro had taken a stake in his TV company Oficina Burman, one of its earliest projects,...

“Cinema will not die. Do you know who invented TikTok? The Lumière brothers with their shorts.”

Cannes Film Festival delegate general Thierry Frémaux discussed cinemagoing, streaming, and the emerging generation of Argentinian auteurs in a Ventana Sur masterclass in Buenos Aires.

Under the banner ‘The Future of Cinema’, Frémaux, speaking fluent Spanish, reflected on platforms, cinema’s DNA, Cannes selection policy, and the importance of classic films with local journalists and critics Diego Batlle and Luciano Monteagudo.

As part of Frémaux’s annual participation in the Buenos Aires market the delegate general curates Cannes Film Week, which runs through December...

“Cinema will not die. Do you know who invented TikTok? The Lumière brothers with their shorts.”

Cannes Film Festival delegate general Thierry Frémaux discussed cinema-going, streaming, and the emerging generation of Argentinian auteurs in a Ventana Sur masterclass in Buenos Aires.

Under the banner ‘The Future of Cinema’, Frémaux, speaking fluent Spanish, reflected on platforms, cinema’s DNA, Cannes selection policy, and the importance of classical movies with local journalists and critics Diego Batlle and Luciano Monteagudo.

As part of Frémaux’s involvement, the delegate general curates Cannes Film Week at the Buenos Aires market, which runs through December 3 and...

The best in global television was honored in New York on Monday night at the 2023 International Emmy Awards. The 56 nominees for this year’s awards, handed out by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, came from 20 countries across six continents.

In a sign of how important streaming companies have become to the international TV industry, Amazon and Netflix dominated the best drama category this year, with Netflix’s German-Austrian period drama The Empress, about the legendary love story between Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph and Elisabeth von Wittelsbach, aka “Sissi,” winning the award. The streamer’s South Korean legal drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo, featuring Park Eun-bin as an autistic rookie female lawyer with a genius Iq, was also nominated for best drama. And two nominees came from Amazon: the Argentine historical thriller Yosi, the Regretful Spy from director Daniel Burman, about the real-life intelligence scandal that led to two of...

In perhaps one of her meatiest roles since Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Oscar-nominated thesp Yalitza Aparicio stars in Prime Video’s upcoming series “Cometierra,” created by its showrunner Daniel Burman, The Mediapro Studio’s head of content for the U.S., Mexico and Central America.

Principal photography is underway, predominantly in Mexico, with some scenes shot in Uruguay.

Inspired by the bestselling debut novel of Argentine writer-activist Dolores Reyes, “Cometierra,” meaning Eartheater in English, is a supernatural drama steeped in magical realism that follows Aylín, a young girl from the rough outskirts of Mexico City.

She unexpectedly gains the extraordinary ability to commune with the earth beneath her feet, a gift that propels her into a world of crime-solving and clashes with malevolent forces lurking in her past. With the help of her fellow misfits, Aylín finds her true identity while navigating a community plagued by violence and grappling with...

The Mediapro Studio will shoot from November Season 3 of “The Head,” its biggest international hit, filming in the Sahara Desert with John Lynch (“The Fall”) and Katharine O’Donnelly (“Mary Queen of Scots), attached once more to star.

Olivia Morris also returns to her role as Rachel Russo, the morally conscionable daughter of ambition-crazed biologist Arthur Wilde, played by Lynch.

“The Head” Season 1 took place at an Antarctic research station cut off in winter, Season 2 on a hulking freighter at mid-Pacific’s Point Nemo, the most distant place on earth from nearest land.

“The locations for this series have been a fundamental part of the show itself, always in an inaccessible place,” Laura Fernández Espeso, The Mediapro Studio CEO, told Variety before talking at a Mipcom Media Mastermind Keynote on Tuesday.

“This time we’ll be shooting in the desert: ‘The Head 3’ will take place in an unknown place in the Sahara desert,...

The Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum and Wip Latam industry events are showcasing a wealth of new projects.

The Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum and Wip Latam industry events are showcasing a selection of upcoming projects from Latin America to potential international partners at San Sebastian this month. Regional trends and financing models will also be in the spotlight.

Fifteen titles are in the Forum - from 222 submissions - and six films will showing a first cut in the Wip section. Both sections will take place from September 25-27.

There is a strong showing from Argentina in the Forum, despite the country’s long-running instability,...

San Sebastian — In a first big deal to be announced during this year’s San Sebastian Festival, Madrid-based The Mediapro Studio, one of Europe’s biggest independent and international creation-production-distribution powerhouses, has acquired Cimarrón, the Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico-based production house and services company.

Of “highly significant value,” Tms said Friday, the deal looks set to consolidate Tms’ presence in Latin America and beyond. In the region, in its earliest talent deal, Tms acquired Argentina’s Oficina Burman in 2018, headed by filmmaker Daniel Burman who plays a further double role at Tms as head of content U.S. and as one of Tms’s leading creators, show running Amazon’s Prime Video title “Iosi, the Regretful Spy,” a major hit at 2022’s Berlinale Series.

Cimarrón’s integration in The Mediapro Studio follows on that of Spanish comedy powerhouse El Terrat and production alliances with Penelope Cruz’s Moonlyon, Mexico’s ViX,...

There are times, as a young actor, that you might start to question your career decisions.

Like, for example, when you find yourself buried up to your chin in snow, your head pressed up against the fuselage of a plane and your director starts covering your mouth and nose in even more snow, so much so you can barely breath. That could be the moment when you wonder: “Maybe I should have gone to law school?”

But not Enzo Vogrincic. It was midway through shooting J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow when the 30-year-old Uruguayan actor found himself in exactly that position. The Netflix drama, which will close Venice this year, tells a true, phenomenal story of survival. Of the 45 people, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby team who boarded Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 on Oct. 13, 1972, from Montevideo to Chile. While crossing the Andes mountains, the plane crashed,...

Argentina’s Tarea Fina, a producer on Cannes Camera d’Or winner “Las Acacias,” International Oscar entry “The Sleepwalkers” and Ventana Sur hit “Sublime,” has boarded “A Loose End,” the third feature as a director from Uruguay’s Daniel Hendler, a Berlin Silver Bear winner for Best Actor in Daniel Burman’s 2004 international breakout “The Lost Embrace.”

Set up at Montevideo’s Cordon Films, founded in 2007 by producer-tv director Micaela Solé and Hendler, “A Loose End” (“Un cabo suelto”) is one of the highest-profile projects announced on Monday by the San Sebastián Festival as part of its Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, its industry centerpiece.

Written by Hendler, his third directorial outing returns to a central theme in his first two features as a writer-director: Identity. In his 2011 debut, “Norberto’s Deadline,” a loser real estate agent discovers his true calling and more confidence as an actor.

2017’s “The Candidate,” a Miami Festival best director winner,...

Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks has snagged comedy “The Unexpected Joker” (“El Metodo Tangalanga”) by Mateo Bendesky, a buzzy comedy produced by prominent Argentine producer Diego Dubcovsky under his production banner, Varsovia Films.

Disney’s new theatrical distribution banner, Star Distribution, will release the film in Latin America in January 2023.

Comedy had its world premiere at Argentina’s Mar del Plata Film Festival where it first sparked interest among various sales agencies. Deal is one of many to emerge from Ventana Sur, now back in full force as an in-person event after made to go online by the pandemic.

Dubcovsky and FilmSharks have previously collaborated on Berlinale Panorama title, “The Tenth Man” (“El Rey del Once”) and “The Mystery of Happiness,” both directed by Dubcovsky’s former Bd Cine partner Daniel Burman. His extensive producing career includes leading Latin directors such as Anahi Berneri, Walter Salles and Burman, whose “Lost Embrace” clinched...

Cannes — Taking place in the Grand Auditorium in Cannes, the crowd that arrived to cheerlead winners at Mipcom’s Cannes TV Diversify Awards, was compact but buoyant as winners took to the stage.

Some of the TV industry’s only awards to celebrate diversity and inclusion, a record 190 submissions were received this year from 27 countries.

Hosted by the international anchor and diversity advocate, Femi Oke, the Awards saw 10 winners announced on Wednesday night with many present to receive awards. Canada proved the biggest prize winners, accounting for three awards.

“All the winners today have been recognised not only by their peers, but by specialists and advocacy groups in the diversity and inclusion area, an extraordinary and meaningful accolade that also stands as an example of what’s possible in TV,” said Lucy Smith, director of Mipcom Cannes and MipJunior.

For the category Representation of Race and Ethnicity (Scripted), the award went to “Pour toi Flora,...

“There’s an old Chinese curse: ‘May you live through interesting times.’ The sector is now going through very interesting times indeed,” Fremantle’s Manuel Marti reflected to Variety as Madrid’s 2nd Iberseries & Platino Industria, a TV-film forum, wound down on Friday, running Sept. 27-30.

Three large table talk topics were the fall out from the planned merger of HBO Max and Discover+ by Warner Bros. Discovery – with the removal of more than three dozen titles on HBO Max in August alone – Netflix’s reconfiguration of its business model and galloping inflation in Europe, threatening streamer subs, They also played out, if sometimes indirectly, at the Iberseries & Platino Industria panels.

Overall, the bigger picture was of a still vibrant but now challenged TV industry in Spain, Latin America and Portugal.

Iberseries’ mood was still upbeat, however. “Creators are enjoying freedoms, Americans are reading subtitles, the only stories which work...

The 2nd Iberseries & Platino Industria in Madrid has lured a large number of top showrunners and TV execs to participate in the annual event’s multiple panels over Sept. 27-30. The intense and extensive program of some 40 conferences and keynote addresses include discussions on animation, financing, creativity and talent, education, sports, artificial intelligence and platforms, among others.

Launched last year, Iberseries is conceived as an exclusive space for the intersection between business and creative talent, as well as the exchange of ideas, projects, financing and co-production opportunities among the growing ranks of the Ibero-American TV industry.

During four jampacked days, Iberseries & Platino Industria will host screenings, pitching sessions, workshops, one-on-one sessions aside from these conferences. By early September, more than 1,000 participants signed up for the mostly in-person event. Last year’s inaugural edition boasted 2,000 participants but half connected virtually, Iberseries director Samuel Castro pointed out. Some of these panels will...

Directing Penélope Cruz in Venice competition title “L’immensità,” Italy’s Emanuele Crialese is teaming with Argentina’s Nicolás Gil Lavedra to produce “Rona,” the second feature by Emiliano Torres, writer-director of San Sebastian Special Jury Prize winner “The Winter.”

Produced by Crialese’s Italy-based Now and Buenos Aires Gamán Cine, set up by Lavedra and Torres, “Rona” is being structured as a majority European production and will shoot mainly in English. Lavedra, whose recent production credits include Paz Encina’s Rotterdam Tiger Award winner “Eami,” will oversee production.

“Rona” is one of the highest-profile of 14 titles at this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, one of the Spanish festival’s centrepiece industry events.

Written by Torres and Marcelo Chaparro, the director’s habitual co-scribe, “Rona” returns to the Patagonia setting of Torres’’ feature debut “The Winter” (“El Invierno”) which also won cinematography at San Sebastian. This time round,...

New projects by Argentina’s Anahí Berneri and Emiliano de Torres, both big winners at San Sebastian, plus Brazilian Beatriz Seigner’s next all feature in the 14-project lineup for San Sebastian’s 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, the Spanish festival’s biggest industry event.

Now preparing her sixth feature, Berneri debuted in 2005 with Berlin Teddy Award winner, “A Year Without Love.”

Famed as an early Daniel Burman co-scribe and longtime Ad, Torres’ career dates back to the turn of the century, although he only saw his feature debut, “The Winter,” bow in 2016.

Seigner released her first feature in 2010, “Bollywood Dream,” though she is best known for 2018’s “Los Silencios,” a supernatural-laced refugee crisis drama.

Berneri, Torres and Seigner are joined at the Forum by prospective new titles from more seasoned filmmakers such as Chile’s Niles Atallah and Spain’s Helena Taberna.

At least half the berths at this year’s Co-production Forum,...

Yosi, The Regretful Spy will go deeper into the international intelligence world on Amazon Prime Video.

The streamer has given the green light to a second season of the show, which is from Daniel Burman’s Mediapro Studios-owned production company Oficina Burman (Pequeña Victoria).

Set in 1994, the second season will deal with the attack on the Amia building, the bloodiest ever terrorist attack in Argentina, which left hundreds of people dead and injured. Protagonist Yosi has become a fugitive determined to go public with the help of a famous journalist, when the Israeli intelligence service asks him to investigate the best kept secret of Argentine arms traffickers: the Condor missile.

Israel’s Moran Rosenblatt (Fauda, Hit & Run) and Itzik Cohen (Fauda) join the Argentina and Uruguay cast, which includes Natalia Oreiro, Gustavo Bassani, Mercedes Moran, Alejandro Awada and Carla Quevedo. Burman will return as Showrunner, sharing directing duties with Sebastian Borensztein,...

Putting itself on the big shoot radar, the City of Buenos Aires is set to offer Argentina’s first incentive for international shoots, a 20 cash rebate on productions’ expenditure in the Argentine capital.

Capped at Pesos 75 million per title, the BA Cash Rebate requires a minimum spend of Pesos 80 million and an at least four-day shoot in Buenos Aires.

Whether shooting totally or partially in the city, both co-productions and totally foreign titles are eligible for incentives. Reimbursement must be made via an Argentine co-producer or service company on a totally overseas shoot. That company can be based anywhere in Argentina.

BA Cash Rebate, as the new incentive scheme is called, is set to launch October, said Buenos Aires City Culture Minister, Enrique Avogadro.

Total moneys for a first tranche of funding come in at Argentine Pesos 491 million (4 million), he added. The new incentive will be presented in Buenos Aires...

The Berlinale was the world’s first big festival to embrace drama series, launching Berlinale Series in 2015 and adding a year later an industry component, known from 2019 as the Berlinale Series Market. It has grown into one of continental Europe’s biggest TV events. Following, seven takes on this year’s edition.

TV Tail Wags Film Dog

The Berlinale Series Market used to be a burgeoning sidebar. Now, added to the Festival’s Berlinale Series section, it’s the biggest industry event at the Berlin Festival. That’s of course a sign of the times. In 2017, almost 70% of the U.K.’s film/high-end TV production spend went to film. In 2021, the ratio was reversed, with the Hetv sector accounting for a massive $5.6 billion – 73% – of a total $7.6 billion spend, according to a BFI report. Money talks. Many Berlin competition movies are produced and sold by companies whose revenues might not reach $1 million a year.

Danish helmer Lone Scherfig is already developing the second season of “The Shift[/link]”, she revealed on Monday during an online Berlinale Series Market talk “From Film to Series.”

Set in a maternity ward and starring Sofie Gråbøl and Pål Sverre Hagen, it’s the first series as a showrunner for Scherfig, who in 2019 opened Berlinale with “The Kindness of Strangers” and won a Silver Bear for “Italian for Beginners.”

“It’s a tribute to the people who work in the healthcare system under extreme pressure, to the care and the love they show, even despite tough working conditions,” she said. “The Shift” is produced by Creative Alliance, with Beta Film handling the sales.

Scherfig was joined by another Silver Bear winner, Argentine director Daniel Burman, back in Berlin with Amazon Prime Video’s “Yosi, the Regretful Spy” – the story of a secret agent infiltrating the Jewish community in Buenos Aires,...

Since its launch in 2015, the Berlinale Series section has emerged as a kind of a boutique scripted TV fest set within a major film festival.

The Berlinale was famously the first A-list festival to embrace changing viewer habits and to officially incorporate television drama into its lineup — and this head-start is reflected in the growing stature of Berlinale Series.

Taking place over a concentrated three-day period (Feb. 14-16), Berlinale Series offers up seven world and international premieres from around 200 entries, giving each of them the red-carpet treatment at the Zoo Palast cinema.

Running parallel, the Berlinale Series Market — part of the European Film Market — offers up an online conference program, showcases and screenings. Its Berlinale Series Market Selects curates a selection of 14 series being traded on the market. Meanwhile, Co-Pro Series looks to pair 10 early-stage international series projects with co-producers and financiers through a series of pitches and meetings.

Head...

The Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market is gearing up for its second virtual edition with an improved online infrastructure for exhibiting companies and a wide-ranging conference program that focuses on a transforming industry and the changes that are shaping its future.

For Dennis Ruh, who took over as EFM director in 2020, it’s the second market that has been forced online due to the pandemic — a disappointing development after physical space at the Gropius Bau and Marriott Hotel, the event’s main venues, had been nearly completely booked.

“The biggest challenge was to switch from a hybrid to an online event — to make this decision,” says Ruh.

With Germany and much of Europe hit by the Omicron onslaught in December and January, a physical event was no longer feasible. “We had to make this decision by the beginning of January and that was not an easy one,” he says.

In a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.

Here, Variety talks with Fernando León de Aranoa, director of the Javier Bardem-starring “The Good Boss” (“El Buen Patron”), Spain’s Oscar entry, which is a big box office hit on home turf and has scored more Spanish Academy Goya nominations than any other film in history.

What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar?

I feel a mix of joy and responsibility. It means following the steps of some of the greatest Spanish filmmakers who have done it before, being among a group of brilliant directors from all over the world and having the opportunity of showing “The Good Boss” to a wider audience.

Exclusive: The Berlin Film Festival and accompanying European Film Market may be all about the big screen but, over the past few years, the Berlinale Series has been growing in stature. Series Head Julia Fidel has watched as the barriers between film and TV have broken down and more and more stars, writers and execs behind the biggest movies have chosen to helm TV projects.

There are seven shows in the Berlinale Series this year and many more Series Market Selects, ranging from a world premier for Amazon Prime’s Argentinian Yosi, the Regretful Spy to Sky UK’s supernatural crime thriller The Rising to Czech Republic/French co-pro Podezření (Suspicion). We caught up with Julia about this year’s crop and got her thoughts on the much-evolving TV landscape.

Deadline: Talk us through this year’s Series list?

Julia Fidel: We are so excited about these seven titles,...

Berlinale Series Market, Co-Production Market name selections.

The world premiere of French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie’s Nobody’s Hero will open the Panorama section at next month’s Berlin International Film Festival, marking the first time the director has screened at the event.

Nobody’s Hero is one of 16 world premiere additions to the Panorama strand, joining the 13 titles confirmed last month for a complete list of 29 films.

Scroll down for the full list of new titles

The film takes place after a terrorist attack in Clermont-Ferrand in France, and centres on a likeable man in his mid-thirties, an older...

“The Fear Index,” starring Josh Hartnett, and the third season of iconic Israeli series “False Flag” will both screen at the Berlinale Series Market Selects, whose lineup was unveiled Tuesday.

The latest from “The Crown” producers Left Bank Pictures, Sky Original “The Fear Index” is billed as a fast-paced, gripping Frankenstein-style parable on the dangers of AI. Based on the Robert Harris novel of the same title, its international sales will be handled by NBCUniversal Global Distribution.

Sold by Keshet International, “False Flag” is one of milestone titles that turned Israel’s series into a global brand, with Fox International taking the world on season one at 2015’s Mipcom in its first global acquisition of a foreign-language series.

Season three marks the return of both original series creators, Maria Feldman and Amit Cohen, in a tale which looks set to weave the same web of distrust, deception and sudden twists as the first two seasons.

The program announcements continue for this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, with the Series and Generation strands both unveiling today, as well as the line-up for the Co-Production Market. Scroll down for the lists of titles.

The Berlinale Series selection, which is increasingly becoming a more high-profile part of the festival, again boasts several buzzy titles.

Premiering in Berlin will be Amazon Prime Video’s Argentinian series Yosi, The Regretful Spy, the Swedish show Lust from HBO Max, Sky’s UK series The Rising, and Lone Scherfig Danish show The Shift, which comes from local broadcaster TV2.

The Generation strand, which features youth-focused cinema, includes 14 features this year. The selection marks the last of long-time Generation head Maryanne Redpath.

Elsewhere, the European Film Market has confirmed titles for its Co-Production Market, which like the rest of the industry activity will take place virtually this year.

The Berlinale runs February 10-20 this year,...

One of the largest corporate presences at this year’s MipCancun, Spain’s Mediapro, for decades now a sports broker, services provider and producer of auteur films, from Woody Allen and Roman Polanski to Spain’s Isabel Coixet and Fernando León de Aranoa, has made a pair of high-profile executive moves within its flagship The Mediapro Studio production unit, naming Eugeni Sallent as the company’s new head of Latin America and Carolina Bilbao as VP of content and business development for the U.S.

Both appointments are representative of an ongoing push among many European “super indies” to grow their current operations on the other side of the Atlantic, a phenomenon manifesting itself in the open at this year’s MipCancun, where speakers from Gaumont, Banijay, Endemol Shine Boomdog, The Mediapro Studio, Rt and Turkey’s Intermedya will all participate.

Recent CEO at the Mediapro Group’s headquarters in Colombia and Italy,...

Exclusive: Spanish indie production powerhouse Mediapro is at San Sebastian Film Festival this year screening two of the buzziest local features in the program: the Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz and Oscar Martinez-starring Official Competition, which arrives from Venice, and the Javier Bardem-fronted The Good Boss, which premieres here.

The pair of films, which are both forms of comedies but could hardly be more different in their approach to the medium, are the talk of the town after being well received at the fest (the official The Good Boss premiere is this eve but it has screened twice already).

Speaking to Deadline in San Sebastian, Laura Fernández Espeso, CEO of Mediapro’s production wing The Mediapro Studio, says the festival feels like a “celebration” for the company after a tumultuous 18 months. At the beginning of the pandemic, the prolific outfit had to pause a total of 52 productions, but everything is now back on track,...

Argentina’s Aleph Cine, led by Fernando Sokolowicz, one of the country’s most established film producers, has taken an undisclosed co-production stake in Romina Paula’s project “Gente de noche” (“People by Night”), produced by New Argentine Cinema icon Diego Dubcovsky at Varsovia Films.

Selected for San Sebastian Festival’s 9th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, “Gente” marks Paula’s return to the Spanish festival after winning the 2019 Horizontes Award with her feature debut “Again Once Again” and co-directing 2020 Official Section omnibus player “Unlimited Edition.”

Toplining Agustina Muñoz (“Viola”) and Margarita Molfino (“Wild Tales”), the project follows Agustina, a woman who travels with her newborn baby to Selva Misionera to meet her wife’s family.

Selva Misionera owes its name to the Jesuit missions that began in the 17th Century in Guaraní territory -comprising current northeastern Argentina plus Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil- by the Society of Jesus to evangelize the region.