Upcoming Titles by Leading TV Fiction Players to Prove Spain’s Continued Competitiveness at Series Mania

Five upcoming Spanish TV fiction projects, involving top local production and distribution companies, feature in Coming Next from Spain, a showcase of series unspooling March 19 at Series Mania.

Atresmedia TV’s “Sanctuary,” Movistar+ Plus’ “Fine Arts,” Filmax‘s “Dating in Barcelona” Season 2, The Good Mood-Mediawan’s “The Other Life” and Onza Distribution‘s “Heartless” will be presented at the event, proving once more that Spanish fiction production is in good health.

Six years after high-end Spanish TV series lifted off on the global market, championed by hit series such as “Money Heist” and “Elite,” Spain has become one of the steadiest suppliers for worldwide platforms.

The successful trend continues as of today, with Mediaset España and Alea Media series “Wrong Side of the Tracks,” whose Seasons 1, 2 and 3 have reached the top 10 of most watched non -English TV fiction shows on Netflix for the period March 4-10, 2024, cumming 41.6 million hours viewed.

Tuesday’s Next from Spain event, with the support of ICEX Spain Trade & Investment under its Audiovisual from Spain brand, will offer an opportunity to discover some of the most attractive Spanish dramas to come. The titles in brief:

“Sanctuary,” (“Santuario,” Atresplayer, Pokeepsee Films)

The newest bet on TV fiction by leading Spanish producer Atresmedia TV, this time in collaboration with Pokeepsie Films, with Montse García, Álex de la Iglesia and Carolina Bang as executive producers and Lucía-Alonso-Allende as executive co-producer.

Manuel Bartual and Carmen Pacheco created and wrote  the fiction, directed by Rodrigo Ruíz Gallardón and Zoe Berriatúa.

A sci-fi thriller, “Sanctuary” explores maternity seen from the point of view of a dystopian future. The series adapts the acclaimed podcast of the same name created by Bartual and Pacheco.

Aura Garrido (“The Department of Time,” “El cuerpo”) plays Valle, an engineer specialized in AI with very clear values. When she is offered to work at the Sanctuary she will have to rethink her ideals. Lucía Guerrero (“Money,” “Grupo 7”)  is Pilar, a woman who arrives at the Sanctuary three months pregnant to whom everything will soon begin to seem strange. 

With “Sanctuary,” Atresmedia – via its premium content platform Atresplayer — continues its highly ambitious bet on TV fiction production, premiering by 2023 more than a dozen of Spanish new TV fiction series.  

“The Other Life,” (The Good Mood)

Founded by legendary Spanish producer-showrunner Daniel Écija (“I’m Alive,” “The Fence,” “The Accident”), The Good Mood forms part of the international group Mediawan.  

“The Other Life,” an eight-episode, 52-minutes series,  picked up by Disney+, narrates how a few days after moving into a new house with her family, Gabriela discovers a vein of an unknown mineral beneath her pantry floor. Upon touching it, a strange and disturbing phenomenon happens: Gabriela sees fragments of the future and, in one of them, the death of her daughter Emma.

After realizing that these episodes are not the result of a mental or physical imbalance, Gaby will start to fight to change her daughter’s future with the help of Andrés, a police inspector who has had a similar experience to her own. The Good Mood producer Javier Lorenzo and Randall Broman, head of international distribution at Mediawan Rights, are presenting the project at Series Mania.

“Heartless,” (“Perverso,” Onza Distribution)

Created by Alonso Laporta (“Parot,” “The Department of Time”) for Onza, the international indie distributor and a leading content producer in Spain.

“Heartless” narrates a series of mysterious disappearances startling Madrid’s high society. An unknown criminal is on the loose, slaughtering rich men in a twisted game played to death.

Judge Lucia Vergara oversees the case, and only Haro – a character first seen in “Parot” thriller series – a man Lucía imprisoned 10 years ago, understands the minds of dangerous criminals like him. Lucia will team up with Haro unwillingly to stop the killer at all cost, but little does she know that the sophisticated but brutal aristocrat, is actually plotting a vendetta against the judge who sent him down by law.

“Fine Arts,” (“Bellas Artes,” Movistar Plus+, Gloriamundi, Historias Particulares)

Giant telco Telefonica-owned Movistar Plus+ is showing “Fine Arts,” toplining Argentine star Óscar Martínez (“El ciudadano ilustre,” “Competencia oficial”) as a prestigious, intellectual, sophisticated, though also rather cynical and conceited art historian and cultural manager, appointed director of an important modern art museum in Madrid. In his new position, he will have to deal with a variety of different circumstances and conflicts.

The new Movistar Plus+ original series, created by Argentina’s Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat (“El encargado,” “Nada”), will premiere simultaneously in Spain and Latin America in 2024. Through Telefonica’s platform and Star+, viewers will be able to enjoy this year the six 30-minute episodes into which the fiction is divided.

With a high profile cast which also includes the names of Ángela Molina, Ana Wagener, Dani Rovira and Jorge López, the new fiction is directed by Martín Bustos and produced by Pablo E. Bossi, Cabe Bossi, Pol Bossi and Maxi Lasansky.

“Dating in Barcelona,” Season Two (“Citas Barcelona,” Filmax)

Barcelona-based mini-major the Filmax group is presenting at Series Mania the second season of this romantic comedy, an adaptation of hit format “Cites,” currently lensing in the Catalan capital city.

Directed by Filmax’s executive and prolific creator Pau Freixas (“The Red Band Society,” “Todos mienten”), “Citas Barcelona” follows the lead of the series’ first season, where the characters meet face-to-face after contacting online, looking for love, sex or simply someone to take them away from loneliness.

The cast take in popular Spanish actors such as Leonor Watling, Asier Etxeandía, Bruna Cusí, Verónica Echegui, Anna Castillo, Ricardo Gómez, Yolanda Ramos and Óscar Casas.

As happened with the first, the second season will be exclusively released on Prime Video and Catalan streaming service 3Cat, scheduled for this year.