Running Oct. 30-Nov. 4, SISF bows Movistar Plus’ ‘Patagonia' and ‘The Center' Season 2, HBO Max’s ‘Infamy’ and Channel 4’s ‘Stepping Up’ Opening on Oct. 30 with “American Hostage,” honoring “Toy Boy” showrunner Ronan Bennett and “Money Heist” star Alvaro Morte, the fourth edition of South International Series Festival weighs in with a mouthwatering fiction competition, dominated by series from Europe, and an ever stronger Andalusian presence. One growth axis is “international scope,” the other one “connecting Andalusia’s industry with the rest of Spain and abroad.” It has already come far on both counts, while backing from Spain looks assured. That tells in a Fiction Competition which sources four world premieres, three from two of Spain’s most bullish streaming services in Spain.
Movistar Plus, the biggest Spanish pay TV/SVOD operator – behind “La Bola Negra,” “The Beloved” and “Querer” and now “The Castle” and “Killing a Bear” – brings “Patagonia,” a high-stakes race against time missing son/eco thriller with “Money Heist” and “Intimacy” star Itziar Ituño, and “The Center,” Season 2 which lifts the lid on the hidden world of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) winning fans for an espionage thriller which is fully grounded in the daily lives of its operatives. A fourth world premiere, “Stepping Up,” created, written and starring Josh Pugh (“Sneakerhead,” “How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge)”) weighs is as a half-hour series expansion of Pugh’s short-format “Stepping Up: Channel 4 Comedy Blap.” The series is produced by the U.K’s Roughcut Television (“Big Boys,” “Things You Should Have Done”), founded by “The Office” producer Ash Attala.
South’s other five Fiction Competition titles are backed by movers and shakers on the European scene: “Still Breathing” is backed by Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, a consistent source of top-notch drama such as “A Better Man”; “Someone Should Ban Sunday Afternoons,” from Spain’s Isabel Coixet, is one of the latest series aired On Arte, behind Series Mania standout “Etty,” and produced by France’s Maui Entertainment, headed by “The Bureau” showrunner Eric Rochant. German public network ARD Degeto, plus international distributor Beta Film, a driving force behind European sculpted shows, both back “Blindspot Berlin.” “Snake Killer marks Amazon MGM Studios’ first Danish original. It will act as a flagship for a delegation of Danish producers and broadcaster execs that will hit Cadiz’s SISF.
Bedeviled by rising costs, as the rest of the world, Denmark’s industry is eager to co-produce. SISF honors showrunner-writer Bennett (“Top Boy,” “The Day of the Jackal”), Alvaro Morte, “Money Heist’s” professor, and Ana Duato (“Remember When”); Isabel Coixet delivers a masterclass. Of multiple, Industry talks take in The Young Adult Phenomenon: Literary Adaptations Without Borders, analyzing Wattpad adaptations from “Mala influencia” to “Boulevard,” to the international impact of series like “My Life with the Walter Boys,” produced by Sony Pictures Television International for Netflix.
Wattpad Webtoon Studios’ Mar Vila, Sony Pictures Television’s Celia Duffy and Spotlight Media’s Anxo Rodriguez are speakers. One Creative Talks highlight looks set to be a mano a mano on directing between Javier Ruiz Caldera, fresh off San Sebastián hit “5 More Minutes,” and Paco Cabezas, (“Wednesday,” “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon”), also director of the fearsome “La nena,” which screens at SISF. South International Series Festival will showcase at least one non-fiction gem: “The Oligarch and the Art Dealer,” an Arte series – again – co-created, written and directed by Andreas Dalsgaard charting the $1 billion dispute between Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier and Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev and the currency of the ultra-rich: Investing in art.
Better than diamonds,” says Dalsgaard. Highly rated, the three-part docusueries has already proved a Sundance and CPH-DOX highlight. There’s good word too on “The Dirty Years: Where is Nani?” from Mediaset España, using talking heads and archive footage to reconstruct the case of “El Nani,” a young small time criminal who disappeared in police custody in 1983.
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