Movistar’s fledgling distributor has struck its first slew of sales and is moving to the next stage, GM Maria Valenzuela has revealed, as she discusses the Spanish giant’s attempt to reinvent the thriller genre and how the writers strike is gifting opportunities to spotlight international content.
Valenzuela took charge of Spain’s largest pay-TV/SVoD operator’s distributor Movistar Plus Internacional last year and the former Sony and Huawei exec said it has “been an incredible journey” so far.
The outfit is shopping the likes of Rapa Seasons 1 and 2 and Off World (Apagón), which have sold to Vix+ in the U.S. and LatAm, and is in the process of taking a bunch of new shows to market, which Valenzuela described as the “next step and the big challenge of the coming year” as she chatted to Deadline before a NEM keynote at the Dubrovnik market on Tuesday.
Maria Valenzuela. Image: NEM
“Partners want to have a direct relationship with Movistar,” she said. “We were so encouraged by the response from around the world [to the distribution arm] and it is so valuable this knowledge we are bringing by having our partners closer. We do not own a platform outside Spain and that makes us a standalone producer-distributor to be aligned with.”
Co-production and collaboration opportunities will naturally improve as the distribution arm becomes more settled, added Valenzuela. The outfit previously used bespoke distribution models for each of its shows and had a partnership with Beta Film – struck in 2019. While that partnership has run down, Valenzuela stressed that the pair remain close collaborators.
She said Movistar is well placed globally to “look at the USPs for a Spanish series and see how they will translate for a French or German or Latin American audience, not through an algorithm but through a gut feeling on how content can evolve.”
“My job is a journey between those two worlds of creativity and distribution,” she added.
With this in mind, Valenzuela is heavily involved with the Telefonica-owned giant’s bustling originals slate and she was at NEM promoting the likes of upcoming thriller La Mesías, Canneseries winner The Left Handed Son and Rapa.
Reinvention
Through a number of different approaches, the outfit is reinventing the thriller genre, according to Valenzuela.
Movistar is happy to play around with episode number, episode length and format but, more importantly, gives creatives the space to “test, mix and establish their own language and framed design,” she said.
“We are very proud to offer shows that are not caught in the patterns you see elsewhere,” added Valenzuela. “We have spent the past seven years finding the DNA to be different. The constant in our shows is that they are character driven, not event driven.”
Valenzuela flagged Rapa, in which the audience finds out who the killer is in the first episode, which “breaks all the rules by making a mystery out of the mystery.” Left Handed Son, meanwhile, has “an amazing record on our platform” while “not feeling obviously commercial,” she said, and the show won Best Short Series at the recent Canneseries. Rafael Cobos’ debut follows Lola, an upper-class mother who watches the drift of her youngest child, Lorenzo, towards the darkness of a neo-Nazi group.
Valenzuela wasn’t giving much away regarding the high-profile La Mesias, a family thriller about trauma that comes from Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo and has been keeping plot details under wraps. A private screening is taking place next week.
The reinvention strategy is one of the ways in which Movistar is seeking to shine in a market packed with deep-pocketed U.S. streamers, which Valenzuela said has given the team a renewed, intense focus, while they are simultaneously able to play off the success of local streaming hits such as Money Heist.
The U.S. writers strike, which is showing no sign of abating, also gifts opportunities to spotlight international content,’ she added.
“This is a great moment for everyone from the international productions world to be proud of what we do,” she added.
Speaking yesterday in Dubrovnik, The X Files EP Frank Spotnitz said the “erosion of the power of writers in the U.S.” can serve as a “learning opportunity” for European storytellers.
Valenzuela was speaking at NEM, which is also featuring talks from execs from All3Media International, Warner Bros. Discovery and SkyShowtime.
