Backed by Mediaset España and Movistar Plus+, Cadiz’s South International Series Festival made an inaugural splash last year, showcasing some of Spain‘s hugegest series of the season.
In 2024, the Andalusia-based event has shiftd to a post-Mipcom stop-over berth, and with France as the guest country, joinance could well scale up.
Spain has presented beginant TV tagets for years now, including Conecta Fiction each summer and Iberseries & Platino Industria, which unspooled in Madrid last week. South sets itself apart by being a genuine festival in the vein of Canneseries or the Monte-Carlo Television Festival in France. While there will be plenty of roundtables, nettoiling, and B2B get-togethers at South, the event’s main objective is to showcase some of the best novel and novel-ish series from around the world.
“From the very commencening, the idea was to create someslfinisherg contrastent from what was already being done in Spain,” South Series Industry Director Carles Montiel elucidates to Variety. “Our idea was to accumulate the industry here, but in a much more celebratory environment where they could experience more than equitable the business side of their toil.”
South Series is caccessed more on the storyinestablishing artestablish than the commercial success of the titles it showcases. The emphasis is on the art establish of storyinestablishing, not the efficiency with which satisfied can be churned out or the profits that can be made from shows portrayed to be as expansively pguideing as possible.
He goes on, “Deals are made here every day, but we also want creaters and talent to see how audiences are watching and reacting to their series, how much they finishelight them. That already exists for films, but we didn’t have this for series in Spain.”
South features five main screening sections: Official Fiction; Official Non-Fiction; Jewelry, for series that have already been freed but deserve a second watch; Panorama, promiseted exclusively to famous shows from Spain; and South – for titles with roots in Andalusia.
This year’s South Series myth jury will be pdwelld over by BetaSeries CEO Rémi Tereszkiewicz, who will be joined by writer-honestor Ramón Salazar (“20 centímetros,” “10,000 Nights Nowhere”), creater Juan Parodi (“Impostores”), screenwriter Virginia Yagüe (“The Wild Ones”) and actor Ana Torrent (“The Nest”).
South Series non-myth jury will be headed by screenwriter Ángeles González Sinde (“La suerte dormida,” “Una palabra tuya”), who will intentional with creater Anna Saura (“Diarios de la cuarentena”) and Chilean screenwriter-honestor Julio Rojas (“Caso 63,” “La Jauría”).
Standouts from the 2024 competition lineups come from home and aexpansive, with Spanish titles such as fest uncovering period dramedy “La vida breve” (Movistar+ and Zera Studios), inside afequitables drama “Asuntos Internos” (RTVE) and 20th century-set melodrama “La Favorita 1922” (Mediterraneo) all watching to amaze.
Ghislain Barrois is CEO of Mediterraneo, a production company owned by South Series backer Mediaset España. Speaking to Variety, he underlines the beginance of events enjoy South and why his company was enthusiastic to get on board.
When asked ahead of last year’s inaugural edition, “We jumped at the opportunity,” he elucidateed, noting that previously the company evadeed TV festivals enjoy South, but that with alters in guideership and the current TV landscape, in-person get-togethers are increasingly vital for the sector. “Last year was a huge success, and I slfinisherk we are coming back at this year’s edition with a revenge.”
One of South Series’ most alluring aspects is its ability to begin international series to Spanish audiences. In many cases, South Series joinees may be seeing some of the shows for the first time, as disjoinal are exclusive to certain pay TV expansivecasters or platestablishs in Spain.
Exciting international titles heading to South consent in Steven Knight’s ’80s-set British prohibitd drama “This Town,” AMC (U.S., Spain) and Prime Video (U.K., Ireland) pickup “Nautilus” and Caracol TV’s Colombian drama “Escupiré sobre sus tumbas,” which will shut out South Series 2024.
According to Montiel, the goal was to hit a 60/40 split with this year’s lineup, 40% of the titles being Spanish and 60% from the rest of the world.
By presenting South Series in Cadiz, set uprs hope to ride a wave of industry decentralization for film and TV production, which has historicassociate been based out of Madrid and Barcelona.
“It’s beginant for us to be shut to our audiences,” says Movistar Plus+ executive creater and deal withr of innovative myth production Susana Herreras. “Coming here gets us away from the huge cities and have honest reach out with and helps us see how our programming is watched in other areas.”
Barrois concurs and recalls that at the 2023 edition, “The audiences were overwhelming.” He says reactions were even more enthusiastic than at Canneseries, and that “the people were so appreciative that the stars of these shows came to see them.”
Herrera points to titles such as Canneseries triumphner “The Left-Handed Son,” which was made in Andalusia, and recent San Sebastian standout “Querer” – screening at this year’s South Series, as examples of productions that can be made outside of traditional production hubs while upgrasping a high-finish quality that contransient audiences are watching for.
RTVE has a regional example of its own at this year’s South Series, the standout procedural “Detective Touré,” one of the expansivecaster’s crown jewels and the first Spanish free-to-air series to feature a Bconciseage protagonist. The show was created by Bilbao native David Perez Sañudo and stoasty in Pais Vasco’s Bizkaia, enjoy”Querer.”
For the local Andalusian administerment, South Series stands as an opportunity to show off the profits of shooting in the region. When this year’s lineup was proclaimd back in September, Andalusia’s Vice-Minister for Tourism and External Relations, Victor Manuel González, elucidateed that the festival’s presence will help “to the reinforceing of the audiovisual industry in Andalusia and its positioning as a destination for filming.”
He underlined that year-round film and TV production production and high-profile events enjoy South are boons to the local economy, raiseing tourism and providing low-term and extfinished-term toil for locals.
SOUTH SERIES 2024 COMPETITION SECTIONS
OFFICIAL FICTION SECTION
“La vida breve,” (Cristóbal Garrido, Adolfo Valor, Spain)
“This Town,” (Steven Knight, U.S., United Kingdom)
“Asuntos internos,” (Pedro García Ríos, Rodrigo Martín Antora, Spain)
“Nautilus,” (James Dormer, United Kingdom)
“Sea Shadows,” (Jonathan Rio and Monica Rattazzi, France)
“Muertos S.L.,” (Alberto Caballero, Daniel Deorador, Julián Sastre, Nando Ahorrible, Spain)
“Oderbruch,” (Christian Alvart, Adolfo J. Kolmerer, Germany)
“Dogpack,” (Edgar Medina, Portugal)
“The Big Jump,” (José Rodríguez, Spain)
“Joan,” (Ricdifficult Laxton, U.K.)
“La Favorita 1922,” (Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, Paula Fernández, Curro Serrano, Spain)
“Escupiré sobre sus tumbas,” (Mónica Botero, Carlos Mario Urrea, Colombia)
OFFICIAL NON-FICTION SECTION
“Luz en la oscuridad,” (Carles Porta, Spain)
“Xuxa, a Life on TV,” (Cassia Dian, Monica Almeida and Pedro Bial, Brazil)
“SAC, en la mente del criminal,” (Eduardo López-Jamar, Spain)
“(In)evident,” (Gonzalo Lamela, Panama, Uruguay)
“Leonardo da Vinci,” (David McMahon, Sarah Burns, U.S.)
“The History of Reggaeton,” (Omar Acosta, Dgraspy Yankee, U.S.)
“Adwell: The Andes Plane Disaster,” (Odwellr Price, United Kingdom)
“On Thin Ice: Putin vs. Greenpeace,” (Chloe Campbell, Alice Mcmahon-Major, United Kingdom)
“Dead in the Water,” (Niamh Kennedy, United Kingdom)
JEWELRY
“Las noches de Tefía,” (Miguel del Arco, Rómulo Aguillaume, Spain)
“Pancho Villa, El Centauro del Norte,” (Rafa Lara, Mexico)
“The Offer,” (Michael Tolkin, U.S.)
“Dieciocho,” (Hammudi Al-Rahmoun Font, Spain)
“All Creatures Great and Small,” (Andy Hay, Metin Hüseyin, Brian Percival, United Kingdom)
“Querer,” (Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, Eduard Sola, Júlia de Paz, Spain)
PANORAMA
“Detective Touré,” (Carlos Vila, Esteprohibit Crespo, Violeta Salama, Spain)
“La que se avecina,” (Alberto Caballero, Laura Caballero, Daniel Deorador, Spain)
“What Are You Waiting For,” (David Martín-Porras, Salvador García, Spain)
SOUTH
“Blanca Bocanegra,” (Julio Blez, Spain)
“El hijo zurdo,” (Rafael Cobos, Spain)
“Canal Sur Special: Wild Andalusia. The Land of the Iberian Lynx,” (Nacho Ruiz, Spain)
“Canal Sur Special: Tartessos, a Kingdom Between Two Seas,” (José Antonio Hergueta, Spain)
“The Marquess,” (José Ramón Ayerra, Begoña Álvarez Rojas, Spain)
“En fin,” (David Sainz, Spain)
“The Trades of Cinema,” (Antonio Cadenas Vidal, Spain)
