Conecta Fiction & Entertainment: Takeaways from the 2023 Edition

TOLEDO, Spain  — The tide has changed. Just one year after Disney+ dazzled with “Santa Evita,” a banner title from its extraordinary swathe of Latin American originals, the 7th Conecta Fiction & Entertainment caught the mood of a larger international market with panelists in its conference strand focusing often on market challenges, when a feeding fever for premium content dominated conversations in recent editions. That said, running June 26-29 in Toledo, in market attendance and insight and shows brought to market, CF&E fairly rocked. 

10 takeaways from this year’s edition:   

Conecta Fiction Booms

Despite Toledo’s sweltering in a hot snap, even by Spanish standards, Conecta Fiction’s attendance sky-rocketed to 1,031 accredited professionals, an all-time record and 42% up on figures announced at the end of 2022’s edition. Reasons abound. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to exchange ideas, to touch base with production partners, new ideas. It’s really interesting to see what’s happening here on Prime Video, Netflix or Disney+, what’s really working in Spain or Italy, and what lessons I can take back to my territory,” says Marie Leguizamo, MD Banijay Mexico & U.S. Hispanic. 

Togetherness Time

For other reasons too, the business still needs to meet. The market, currently, has slowed: Selling series is harder, a CF&E international distribution panel acknowledged. Yet market  wheels are still turning. “There is a market out there that still wants to buy TV, it wants new things constantly,” said eOne’s Noel Hedges. “Financing projects is just becoming so much more complicated: There are so many options,” added Beta Film’s Christian Gockel. Such market trends requiere frequent face-to-face meetings. CF&E provides a priceless occasion.

What Do Adrian Guerra and Núria Valls Eat For Breakfast?

Have Adrian Guerra and Núria Valls at Spian’s Nostromo Pictures discovered a Netflix elixir? As Conecta Fiction unspooled, they were in Barcelona at a sneak peak  of “Bird Box Barcelona,” which they co-produced. It bows on Netflix from June 23.  Just before Conecta Fiction, “Through My Window: Across the Sea” opened on Netflix, shooting to the top of Netflix’s Global Non-English Top 10 over June 19-25, gives the Nostromo producing duo the chance of scoring three Netflix Top 10 global titles in one month. 

Spanish-Language Streaming Boom Continues

There is, however, a bigger picture. Just before Conecta Fiction, Amazon’s Prime Video announced that romantic teen meller “My Fault,” released June 8, has become its most-watched non-English title of all time is. Five of its 10 most-viewed titles worldwide in the last 12 months are Spanish-language, including the most-watched series, “A Private Affair,” from “Cable Girls” producer, Bambú Producciones. Business these days focuses ever more on potential growth axis: Animation and genre, for example. Little wonder that 68% of CF&E delegates were from Spain and general attendance numbers were up. Much of the upbeat energy at Conecta Fiction came from Spain, driven by its ICEX-backed Spain Content Showcase and Spain Film Commission drill-down on its now extraordinary incentives. 

Los Javis’ “La Mesías”: A World Premiere Sneak Peek

Never-seen-before first footage of Movistar Plus+’s “La Mesías,” Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s follow-up to “Veneno” as writer-director-producers and part of a new CF&E Spanish Content Showcase, proved a definite Conecta Fiction highlight. Some scenes shown in a 90-second college captured its messianic mother (Lola Dueñas) dispatching her kids to leave their family home and save the world. Brief more modern-day scenes suggest all the kids are one way or another scarred by their childhood for life. One big question is whether “La Mesías” will be ready in time to world preem at September’s San Sebastián Festival.     

Spanish Buzz Titles

Showcased in three sessions, top Spanish titles also took in Studiocanal’s “The Vow,” where producer Bambú brings its hallmark production values to a daily series; Filmax’s “Dating in Barcelona,” an episodic take on romance and sex in an online age; Atresmedia’s “Nights in Tefía,” a moving fiction portrait of a Francoist labor camp for homosexuals and other undesirables; Onza’s three-part doc series “Young Addictions,” plumbing social media, porn and online gambling; abduction revenge thriller “Express” 2 from The Mediapro Studio which, focusing on fear and family, looks even more brutal and action-packed than the first season; and Mediterráneo’s “Wrong Side of the Tracks,” its Season 1 already a Netflix No. 1 Non-English global series hit for three weeks last year. Format and ready-made rights will be available at the end of this year. Sergio Gándara, at Chile’s Parox meanwhile sneak peaked nine minutes of “Allende, the Thousand Days,” an engrossing and often good-humoured take on the man and his actions in government before the 1973 coup d’etat.  

Industry Main Bane: Skyrocketing Production Costs

No other complaint drove a bigger through line at Conecta Fiction’s 23 panels and eight keynotes. Best practice solutions abounded too. “With such a demand for content, prices have spiralled, so it’s key to remain competitive and international co-production allow this,” RTVE’s José Pastor said. At Banijay, Leguizamo created a production hub in Mexico for “Last One Laughing,” bringing in production teams from Colombia and Argentina to make local versions. Producers are also looking increasingly to soft moneys to offset price hikes. “We can now link production and financing. Subsidies are a big issue with producers. They know subsidies in their local market. We can become experts in European subsidiaries and be able to pick here a little bit and there. It’s a goal for us,” said Beta Film’s Gockel.

Buzz Projects

At Conecta Fiction, RTVE’s coveted development award went to Spain’s “Wellborn Family,” a broad social satire. There was good word and prizes for some of the most ambitious projects brought to market at Conecta Fiction: Abduction thriller “Disgrace,” from Germany’s Story House Pictures, given depth and edge by its setting of the 1978 Argentina Word Cup; Vertice 360-backed “Border Station,” a time travelling espionage drama-thriller, part set in WWII; and “Death in the Andes,” from Federation Studios-backed Glisk, adapting one of Mario Vargas Llosa’s greatest later novels.

Crime Still Pays

What sells? “The best product is product that can work on both platforms and on linear. You double your clients,” Beta Film’s Gockel said on Conecta Fiction’s international distribution panel. That could be crime. “The way we’re going to generate most financing on [a series] it to have more doors to bang on,” Hedges agreed. Often that is more accessible genres such as crime and less so in science fiction or period realms,” he added. “Buyers are playing it safe at the moment and the safe option is crime in uncertain times,” agreed Keshet International’s Anke Stoll. 

Entertaining Crime 

It may be no coincidence that one of biggest new series brought to market at Conecta Fiction was Fremantle’s “Negotiator.” “There’s a swing towards sort of lighter, more episodic television, different ways of doing the procedural. A mystery show or lighter crime show can be quite high concept and still fun, like ‘Poker Face.’ We’re seeing more entertaining crime rather than deep, meaningful moody crime,” said Hedges. “It’s definitely interesting that procedurals are back in fashion, as well as in the U.K. which was traditionally not keen on procedurals. It’s lighter stories: You tell a complex story in an hour. It’s an interesting trend currently happening,” Stoll added.

Gender Equality: Limitations Remain

Spain’s has progressed on gender equality, but limitations remain, concluded a round table featuring Macarena Rey, CEO, Shine Iberia, Spain, Mercedes Gamero, CEO at Beta Fiction Spain and Eva Leira, co-founder of Leira y Serrano Casting. There are women in positions of responsibility in corporations but a glass ceiling remains, said Gamero. Movies from women now get bonus points when applying for subsidies in Spain. If that works in film, it should be replicated in TV, Rey argued. “We shouldn’t fall in the error of thinking women can just make stories for women,” said Gamero. “There’s no reason why women can’t make a war film,” Leira added. 

Mexico’s Roadmap

When in August 2015 Netflix released “Club of Crows,” its first fully foreign-language series anywhere in the world, one industry take is that the reign of telenovelas would be over. Fast forward to June 2023 and telenovelas are the most-watched titles on TelevisaUnivision’s VOD service, ViX, the company’s Vanesa Rosas said at Conecta Fiction. Melodrama is in Mexico’s DNA, observed Ángel Inzunza at Amazon Studios in Mexico. Super series such as “La Reina del Sur” caused Mexico to be pigeon-holed as great narco drama creators, said Atenea Media’s Ana Celia Urquidi. Mexico’s challenge is still to broaden its gamut, a second panel on the country concurred. “International co-production opens up a larger range of content,” argued BTF Media’s Francisco Cordero. Here, one crux is to mix writers from production partner countries, he added.

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Brazil and Portugal: Conecta Fiction & Entertainment Focus Countries, 2024

At a wrap press conference on Thursday, Geraldine Gonard, Conecta Fiction director, announced that Brazil and Portugal will be CF&E’s focus countries in 2024, which will take place once more at Toledo. Both look good choices. Brazil is back, its federal government under Lula plowing nearly $1 billion into its audiovisual sector just this year, which will turn into Latin America’s production powerhouse. Driven by RTP and private sector companies such as SPi, Portugal has powered into premium TV drama which sometimes retains a social-issue depth, as in female empowerment heist thriller “Vanda,” from SPi, Legendary Ent and Spain’s Panda.    

Yet a Sense of Opportunity Still Remains, Especially for Super Indies

“If streaming services pull back from originals, other well-pockets companies can pull in, as producers or buyers. “The scaling back at the top end of the market is actually a great opportunity for distribution companies to really be creative about helping producers finance,” said Hedges. “While I am looking for new literature that can be adapted into scripts for series and films outside of Poland, I remain committed to bringing fresh Polish ideas to our group,” Ryszard Sibilski, managing director of EndemolShine Poland, told Variety.

“I would always encourage Polish writers to come to me as we can support in getting their ideas off the ground locally, and hopefully beyond,” he added. 

The Deals

10 of the biggest announced at or around Conecta Fiction:

*In an appointment which sums up much of a transfer of energies from U.S. streaming platforms to European independents, Marcelo Tamburri, formerly VP, scripted content development at Warner Bros. Discovery Latin America, was named to the newly-created position of director of international content at Madrid’s Zeta Studios, producer of  “Elite.” 

* Spain’s Buendía Estudios Vizcaya is set, with Atresmedia TV,  to adapt Harry and Jack Williams’ “Angela Black,” directed by Norberto López Amado (“The Time in Between”). As broadcasters across Europe look to power up their streaming services, “Angela” will air first on Atresplayer Premium, Atresmedia’s high-profile fremium VOD service. 

*“Negotiator,” a São Paulo-set episodic crime thriller was brought onto the market by Fremantle which dropped a trailer along with producers Spiral (“Falco”) and Boutique Filmes (“3%”).

*Filmax brought “Dating in Barcelona,” from one Spain’s biggest show runners, Pau Calpe (“Red Band Society,” “I Know Who You Are”), another lighter episodic drama.

*Chile’s Invercine is teaming with Spain’s Abacus, Pausoka and Grupo Lavinia to produce “Boom Agency,” set around the rift between Latin American Boom stars Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García-Marquez, the story of the battling Barcelona agent Carmen Balcells, played by Carmen Machi, who helped make them. Oscar Pedraza, (“Patria”) directs.

*Warner Bros. Discovery has announced its first new Spanish series for Max, crime thriller  “When Nobody Sees Us,” directed by Spain’s Enrique Urbizu (“No Rest for the Wicked”) and produced by “Elite’s” Zeta Studios.  

*Spain’s LaLiga Studios, created by Banijay Iberia and Spain’s LaLiga soccer league, is set to produce a new doc, “The Power of Our Fútbol,” co-produced with Banijay Iberia’s IMA, as it expands its management team. 

* “Isabel’s” Daniela Ramírez is to star in Claudia Huaiquimilla’s upcoming “La Isla,” from Rio Studios (“Dime Con Quién Andas”), a singular sci-fi thriller.

*Clara Films, based out of Santiago de Chile, has struck a strategic development pact with Barcelona VFX studio Unbound Hub on dystopian thriller “Numana,” part of Conecta Fiction’s High End Pitch session.

*Shine Iberia has acquired format rights to musical interview travel series “Tu vida en 3 minutos,” developed by Mexico’s Dopamine with renowned Spanish composer Lucas Vidal (“Elite,” “Fast & Furious 6”) on board for the format.