Set to world premiere at the Valladolid Film Festival, which kicks off Oct. 23, the six-part series is inspired by the first death of an animal which sparks a criminal investigation in Spain Crime repped 27% of scripted TV orders globally, first half 2026 – the single most commissioned TV genre, estimates Ampere Analysis, and a whopping 61% of the No 1 series from many of the world’s biggest players.at this October’s Mipcom trade fair ib Cannes. So one of the global TV business’ Holy Grails is the search for original crime, shows that can stand out from a still hugely crowded market. One candidate is from Spain, “Killing a Bear” (“Matar a un oso”), the latest big series from the largest Spanish pay-TV/SVOD operator Movistar Plus, behind Series Mania 2025 top prize winner “Querer,” International Emmy nominated “Anatomy of a Moment” and 2023 “La Mesías,” the first title to display the full on-ambitions of Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, writer-directors of major Academy Award contender “La Bola Negra.” All three series were bought by or co-produced with Arte France, building with Movistar Plus one of the most fertile TV axes in Europe for series which entertain, yes, but are also marked by high artistic ambitions and say something of the current state of Spain and Europe.
It also marks the latest show by Jorge and Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo, at the Studio TF1-owned Kubik, creators of the first high-profile premium series made in Spain, 2011’s “Crematorio,” produced by Mod Producciones for Canal+ España. Written by the brothers and lead-directed by Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo, in the series a murder is committed. The victim is no hated bigwig, however, as often in murder mysteries, but a Pyrenean brown bear called Cachou.
Its death, poisoned by anti-freeze in April 2020 during Spain’s COVID confinement, sparks on screen and real-life the first criminal investigation in Spain and Europe for an animal’s slaughter. In most murder dramas, suspicion is spread wide, but here its 262 inhabitants of the Val d’Aran who are members of an anti-bear internet chat room, led by the charismatic and powerful Zacaríes Farga, a high-ranking local politician from one of four families which control the Val d’Aran. Shot in September and October last year during seven weeks of unusual sun, says Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo, “Killing a Bear” has blue sky, but “to offset what could come across as too dark a drama.” That said, this is not a blue sky crime drama.
Locations can be stunning but aim at making a larger point, such as when Lola Barrera (Nora Navas), a judge from Barcelona, rounds a final bend in her car high-up above the Val d’Aran, the camera trucking near to a precipice to reveal a first shot of the Valley thousands of feet below, nestling between massive steep-backed mountains, its own enclosed world. Key to the drama is the tone, Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo said at a presentation of the “Killing a Bear” at Madrid’s Iberseries & Platino Industria earlier this month. Farga, for example, is the Val d’Aran’s Environment Counciller, responsible for administering funds to ensure the survival of bears in the Valley after they were re-introduced into the central High Pyrenees from Slovenia in 1997 as a European Union initiative.
But he’s also the adminstrator of the popular Anti-Bears chat room. In a flashback, remembered by Neus, Fargas boasts at a party about knowing one good way to kill.a bear: getting it to ingest anti-freeze. When a container of anti-freeze in spotted in Farga’s garage, he becomes a prime suspect.
Key to “Killing a Bear” was its tone, said Jorge Sñanchez-Cabezudo. But if we were too dramatic, it wouldn’t have been realistic. So we attempted to maintain a naturalistic tone.” Most murder mysteries follow the investigator.
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