Almodóvar Doc From Los Javis’ Leads New Movistar Plus+ Shows

Movistar Plus+, the biggest Spanish SVOD/pay TV operator, has revealed four new scripted series for 2025, including a special on Pedro Almodóvar and struggling mother dramatic comedy “Yo siempre a veces” produced by “Veneno” and “La Mesías” creators Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo at their busy Madrid-based shingle Suma Content.

Also in the mix is “Los sin nombre,” from Pau Freixas and Filmax, a series spin-off from the movie, “La Canción,” a new title from “Hierro” co-writers and “Rapa” co-creators Pepe Coira and Fran Araujo, and espionage thriller “El Centro.”

News of new series comes as Movistar Plus+ scored in September both at Venice and San Sebastián, screening Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The New Years” at Venice’s series selection, alongside Alfonso Cuarón’s Apple TV+ Series “Disclaimer,” Joe Wright’s “M. Son Of The Century” and Thomas Vinterberg’s “Families Like Ours.” 

Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s “Querer” was hailed at San Sebastian as the Spanish series of the year – as “The New Years” was at Venice. A third Movistar Plus+ series, “Celeste,” produced with The Mediapro Studio, was greeted with enthusiasm at its big screen Velodrome screening at San Sebastián. 

“After big soccer matches and a Carlos Alcaraz final, our original series are the most-viewed content on Movistar Plus+. Three after four of our clients watch original productions,”   

Domingo Corral, Movistar Plus+ content director told a select group of journalists on Wednesday, noting that most-watched titles this year have been the final season of edgier crime mystery-thriller “Rapa,” finishing this week, and “Luis Enrique: No Teneis Ni P*ta Idea,” a doc mini-series personal portrait of the Spanish PSG soccer club manager, notorious for his rudeness with the press

All Movistar Plus+ series have common qualities: “[artistic] quality, production quality, a closeness to viewers, an auteurist vision but broad audience ambition,” Corral said. “I think that titles can be commercial and ground-breaking, original, non-formulaic.”

Bearing that out, both Sorogoyen and Ruiz de Azua will shoot movies for Movistar Plus+, Javier Bardem-starrer “El Ser Querido” and “Domingos” respectively, as part of its first “event auteur” slate.

New titles on Movistar Plus+’s 2025 release slate reinforces the creative and production axis between the powerhouse and Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s Suma Content, the consecration of Araujo and Coira as one of Spain’s leading writing duos; another step-up for director Alejandro Marín, who impressed with his solo feature debut “Love and Revolution,”and a second collaboration between Movistar Plus+ and Barcelona studio Filmax and Pau Freixas.

Pedro Almodovar Special

“Pedro Almodóvar will be one of Movistar Plus+ protagonists in 2025,” said Corral. The special from Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo will bow around March 2025, as will “The Room Next Door,” to which Movistar Plus+ has exclusive first TV window rights in Spain. It will count with the collaboration of Almodóvar himself, as well as protagonists of some of his films. The 2025 Academy Awards takes place March 2. “It will be a highly original format. The question is whether we can repeat it,” Corral said. 

A New Los Javis Production: ‘Yo Siempre a Veces’

*Ambrossi and Calvo – known in Spain as Los Javis – will also produce this dramatic comedy, on the travails on a single mother, pregnant, then with a toddler son, in Barcelona. Created and written by Marta Bassols and Marta Loza – “they have a remarkable ability to draw characters,” said Corral – and directed by Claudia Costafreda, a distinguished creative in her own right, co-creator of “Cardo,” and Ginesta Guindal (“Perfect Life,” “Elite”) and Loza. The least advanced of new series announced, set for a hoped delivery at the end of 2025. Set up at Los Javis’ Suma Content.

“La Canción”: Lifting the Lid on Spain’s Dramatic Eurovision Win in 1968

*From the late 1950s, Spain’s government set as one main objective goal its entry into the European Economic Community. By 1961, the only thing that Spain had entered was the European Song Contest. Winning it, as Corral suggested Wednesday, became an almost state concern. Created by Araujo and Coira, “La Canción” promises to deliver the true story behind Massiel’s surprise triumph in 1968, a victory “cemented in a sure-hit chorus, an iconic singer, political will and an incredible chain of chance events,” runs a Movistar Plus+ description. Marín directs; Buendía Estudios (“Offworld”) produces; Patrick Criado (“Riot Police”), Alex Brendemühl (“Red Queen”), Carolina Yuste (“Saben aquell”) and Marcel Borràs (“El Inmortal”).

*A Series Spin-Off of the Movie Which Changed Spanish Cinema: ‘Los Sin Nombre’

“I was amazed to see the number of buyers at the screening,” Vicente Canales, then a young sales agent at Filmax, recalls of the market premiere of “Los sin nombre”  at Italy’s Mifed trade fair. The first feature of Jaume Balagueró, the film, apart from climaxing to one of the most memorable acts of psychological horror in Spanish cinema, introduced auteur genre production to Spain. Balagueró’s own “[REC]” and J.A. Bayona’s “The Orphanage” followed. 

Produced with Filmax and created by Pau Freixas (the original “Red Band Society,” “You Shall Not Lie”), the psychological thriller series spinoff, already announced by Filmax and based on Ramsey Campbell’s original novel, will star Miren Ibarguren (“Arde Madrid”), Rodrigo de la Serna (‘Money Heist”) and Milena Smit (“The Platform 2”). 

*”El Centro”: An Espionage Thriller 

David Ulloa and David Moreno, creative forces on Spanish mob thriller “El Immortal,” a Canneseries entry, re-team on “El Centro,” made in collaboration of Spain’s CNI intelligence service, and a realist and researched take on the daily lives and work of its members. A fiction thriller with an all-star Spanish cast led by Juan Diego Botto (“On the Fringe”), Tristán Ulloa (“Berlin”) and Elena Martín (“Creatura”). The series entered into production last week, Corral said. New production force Fonte Films “Mugaritz,” “”) produces with Movistar Plus+.  

*”La Vida Breve,” (Movistar Plus+)

Luis 1 who? Set to open the South International Series Festival, the dramedy  turns on the shortest-reigning of Spanish monarchs, the reportedly libertine Luis I who in 1724 married Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans, taken to belch, pass wind and undress in public to clean windows with her dress. Already announced, one part comedy, one part court conspiracy drama, starring the highly-regarded Javier Gutiérrez (“Below Zero”) and Leonor Watling (“Talk to Her”) and created by Cristóbal Garrido and Adolfo Valor, behind cult series “Reyes de la Noche.” Movistar Plus+ produces with “Elite’s” Zeta Studios.