Mip TV: Imagina Takes ‘Locked
Up,’ ‘Royal Hospital’
(EXCLUSIVE)
APRIL 7, 2015 | 11:20PM PT
High-quality drama imports help prime
creativity in Spain
John Hopewell (http://variety.com/author/john-hopewell/)
International Correspondent
@john_hopewell (http://twitter.com/@john_hopewell)
MADRID – Gearing up for next week’s Mip TV (http://variety.com/t/mip­tv/),
Imagina Intl. Sales, Spain’s foremost TV fiction sales company, has
acquired international sales rights to woman’s prison survival drama­thriller
“Locked Up (http://variety.com/t/locked­up/),” the latest series from
Globomedia (http://variety.com/t/globomedia/), the biggest and most­
established of Spain’s premier TV production powerhouses.
A future high­profile prime time drama on Antena 3
(http://variety.com/t/antena­3/), one of Spain’s two most­watched channels,
“Locked Up” turns on a young woman, Macarena (Maggie Civantos), who is
jailed for tax fraud. Shocked by her new ménage, she begins to realize that
some cons are prepared to kill other inmates to get their hands on the loot
from a $10 million van heist. In mortal danger, she will have to use her wits
to survive.
Spain has rarely aired Spanish prison dramas, especially set in women’s
jails. High concept, “Locked Up” is “very powerful,” “dark­humor laced” and
“highly innovative” in its ultra­realist visual style, in tones and lighting,” and
shot over 130,000 sq. ft of sets (http://variety411.com/us/los­angeles/sets­
stages/), said Geraldine Gonard, Imagina Intl. Sales COO.
Civantos (“Arrayan,” “Toledo”) heads a fresh Spanish cast, backed by
reputed actors such as Cristina Plazas (“Tengo ganas de ti”) as the prison
governor, Najwa Nimri (“Rome in Room), and Carlos Hipólito (“Cuéntame
como pasó”) as Macarena’s father.
2015’s Mip TV catches Spanish TV (http://variety.com/t/spanish­tv/)
production as a select number of dramas have already broken out as
formats or originals to international recognition. A remake of Spain’s
dramedic procedural, “The Mysteries of Laura,” airs on NBC; medical
dramedy “Red Band Society,” another U.S, makeover of a Filmax­produced
original, ran last year for one season on Fox. Antena 3 parent Atresmedia is
co­producing English­language series “Refugees,” show­run by Bambu
Producciones’ Ramon Campos, with BBC Worldwide.
The Cannes TV­digital mart also unspools after Spain, for several years,
has registered the impact of a flood of high­quality foreign dramas. These
serve as both competition and inspiration for local series writers, prompting
them, in creative terms at least, to raise their game, Gonard acknowledged.
“Spain’s TV industry is highly creative, and crisis has made it all the more
so,” she added. “Series writers are trying to be original, while still connecting
with Spanish tastes.”
A second new Imagina series, “Royal Hospital” (“Hospital Real”), produced
by Mamen Quintas’ Ficcion Producciones, broadcasts this Spring on
regional pubcaster Television de Galicia, a source – with Catalonia’s
Televisió de Catalunya (TVC) – of a significant part of high­quality drama in
Spain over the last decades.
“Royal Hospital” takes a stock drama sub­genre – the hospital series ­and
gives it a twist, setting it in the late­eighteenth century. That adds to the
difficulties of not only operations but also romance, here between a doctor,
who is a member of the gentry, and a nurse from Spain’s toiling classes.
Also on Imagina Intl. Sales’ line­up is TVC hit TV movie “La Marina Café,”
dramedic skein “B & B Magazine” and Voz Audiovisual­produced thriller
“Serramoura, plus entertainment titles “Two For the Show,” “Catch Me If
You Can,” “Fabriclan Kids” and “The Run of You Life,” plus movies “The
Lasa & Zabala Case,” “Traces of Sandlewood” and “Messi,” a portrait of the
soccer star, helmed by Alex de la Iglesia.
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