Andalusia’s ‘Hollywood Moment’ at South International Series Festival

The sophomore edition of Spain’s South International Series Festival, unspooling in Cadiz from Oct. 25-30, will spotlight Andalusia’s burgeoning audiovisual sector.

More than twenty festival activities will focus on the Andalusian audiovisual sector, with industry panels, screenings and talks highlighting the strength of the region’s output.

While presenting this year’s festival poster, SISF’s director Joan Alvarez declared that Andalusia is entering its “Hollywood moment.” The buzzy timing in the region sees not only increased production in the South but also greater support from local bodies such as Junta Andalusia and Andalusia’s public broadcaster Canal Sur, plus the creation of events like the South International Series Festival, which offers a gathering place for local industry heads.

“We believe it’s a great opportunity for European producers to focus on what is going on in Andalusia,” Head of Programming and Industry at SISF Carles Montiel told Variety of the festival’s spotlight on the region. “There is huge talent in Andalusia, not only on the production side but also on the creative side. We will have talks with showrunners and screenwriters, and talk about the way we create stories.”

Andalusia-focused industry sessions include a Pitching Session for projects in development in the region and an industry note titled South Women: What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Andalusian Series?, analyzing series from a gendered and regional perspective.

“We are one of the oldest film commissions in Europe,” said Piluca Querol, Director of the Andalusia Film Commission. “Andalusia has a strong screen history, from ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ to ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ but history is something you have to work on every day.”

“Andalusia is bigger than some European countries,” continued Querol. “Whenever the British royal family took a trip outside of the U.K. in Netflix’s ‘The Crown,’ be it Texas, Australia, or Greece, they would film it here in Andalusia. We have the perfect weather throughout the seasons, be it sun or rain. We have both Arab architecture and Roman architecture, so Andalusia can look modern or medieval. We also have fantastic service providers and talented crews with a lot of experience.”

Highlights amongst the Andalusian titles at this year’s South International Series Festival include Canneseries breakout “The Left-Handed Son,” a Movistar+ project written by Alberto Rodríguez’s frequent collaborator Rafael Cobos and starring María León (“Allí abajo”) and Tamara Casellas (“Ama”) and dark comedy “En fin,” created by David Sainz (“Malviviendo”) and starring Malena Alterio (“Aquí no hay quien viva”), José Manuel Poga (“La Casa de Papel”), Raúl Cimas (“Little Faith”) and Numa Paredes (“The Left-Handed Son”).

Up-and-coming director Julio Blez will be in Cadiz with the pilot episode of “Blanca Bocanegra,” a dark comedy series about an audiovisual technician, while Canal Sur Televisión will present previews of “Crimen y Ley,” “De Alba,” “10 años sin el mito” and “Los Oficios del cine.”

On top of series premieres, the festival will also see previews of projects currently filming in Andalusia, such as “La Agencia,” Mediaset España’s adaptation of the hit French show “Call My Agent” made in collaboration with Good Mood and executive produced by Daniel Écija; Aurora Guerra’s “Ella, maldita alma” from Mediaset España, in collaboration with Plano a Plano and starring Maxi Iglesias (“Valeria”), Martiño Rivas (“Nacho”) and Karina Kolokolchykova (“The Grandmother”); Atresmedia’s “FOQ, the new generation,” of a new version of Carlos Montero’s “Física o Química.”

Olmo Figueredo of La Clacqueta is one of the leading producers working in Andalusia. Speaking to Variety ahead of SISF, the veteran producer highlighted the importance of not only international co-productions for boosting activity in the region but also how vital it is to nationally co-produced in a country like Spain, where autonomous regions not only have a wealth of diverse talent but are also granted different tax rebate brackets. La Claqueta recently announced a strategic partnership with Basque production company Amania Films to increase both companies’ presence in the Spanish audiovisual marketplace and further abroad.

“My company is pretty active. We’ve been co-producing with different regions for ages. This year we’ve had two co-productions with the Basque Country and one with Catalonia,” said the producer. “National co-production is probably one of the most important things as the Spanish system allows you to co-produce between regions and sell rights to your project nationally or regional TV stations looking for content suitable for locals. It’s very intelligent to co-produce nationally in Spain.”

Figueredo also emphasized the importance of having festivals like South Series to foster encounters between national and regional industry peers. “South Series is extremely important because we didn’t have anything relating to series in the region. For indie producers, series are becoming a very important way to balance our economy. Being an indie producer is a really risky business so it’s important to have something a little less risky you can work on in terms of having a contract held by a platform where you are only producing. It’s vital we have these spaces as members of the industry because it is where we connect and begin laying the foundations for our next projects.”