THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO has started filming again of “Official Competition”, a film directed by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat (“The Distinguished Citizen”, “My Masterpiece”, “4x4”, “The Man Next Door”) and written by the renowned Argentinian filmmakers together with Andrés Duprat.

Starring Penélope Cruz (winner of an Oscar® for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” by Woody Allen and produced by MEDIAPRO, and Best Actress at Cannes for “Volver” by Pedro Almodóvar), Antonio Banderas (Best Actor award at Cannes for Almodóvar’s “Pain & Glory” and Oscar Martínez (Best Actor Award at Venice Film Festival for “The Distinguished Citizen” by Cohn and Duprat).

During confinement, the directors have been working non-stop on the creative aspects of the film, and here’s what they had to say on the subject:

Gastón Duprat: “Among all the negative aspects of interrupting a shoot, there were positives: we had an unusually long time to study the material we’d already shot, and to work with the script that remains to be filmed under the microscope. The material we already have is superb: Penelope, Antonio and Oscar are extraordinary. The scenes have what we wanted: an uncomfortable mix of tension and sarcasm, in an aesthetic framework with a lot of conceptual strength. We’re restarting filming with the certainty that we have something incredibly powerful in our hands.”

Mariano Cohn: “This film contains the experiences and learnings we’ve acquired after so many years of filming, like in a logbook. The film has our DNA as directors, but also that of Penelope, Antonio and Oscar since they made generous contributions of their own experiences. In this film, you are going to see an intense distillate of the universe we know best: that of directors and actors trying to do one of the most unnatural and complex things in the world for me: shoot a movie.”

The cast of “Official Competition” also features José Luis Gómez, Nagore Aramburu, Irene Escolar, Manolo Solo and Pilar Castro and is the third movie produced by THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO with renowned Argentine directors Cohn and Duprat after “My Masterpiece” and “4x4”.

International distribution of the production, in association with Orange España, will be managed by Protagonist Pictures.

Plot

In search of transcendence and social prestige, a multimillionaire businessman decides to make a film to leaves a mark. For this, he hires the best: a stellar team consisting of famed filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penelope Cruz) and two well-known actors, both of whom are huge talents, but with even bigger egos: Hollywood actor Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas ) and the radical theater actor Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez). Both legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric tests designed by Lola, Felix and Ivan must face not only each other, but also with their own legacies.

LaLiga and PortAventura World have announced a joint-venture for the creation of “The Beat Challenge”, a new, unique entertainment experience which brings football to both inside and outside of PortAventura World. The project involves Mediapro Exhibitions (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO), with the company responsible for the global strategy of bringing football to theme parks as well as the design of the initial experiences linked to the first phase of the project.

The initial general concept project kicked off in 2019 and finished in the summer of 2020. In this first period Mediapro Exhibitions (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO) spent time analyzing the trends in new theme and entertainment parks linked to sports, the new models of visitor relationships and emerging technologies, etc. As a consequence of this initial phase, the company has come up with an innovative concept which opens up the world of sports entertainment to theme-parks thanks to the opportunities offered by digital technology.

The result is “The Beat Challenge”, a multi-phase project with the first part ready for the 2021/22 football season, with captures digital experience with the launch of a mobile-enabled game and a series of ‘in park’ and ‘out park’ experiences, including the opening of a restaurant equipped with all the latest digital technologies inside the park. Two phases are set to follow: the second is the design and development of a new LaLiga themed ride, with the final phase being the planning and creation of a LaLiga themed park inside PortAventura World.

The docuseries "Fernando", produced by THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO, premieres exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories around the world. A unique portrait of the two-time Formula 1 world champion and one of the most successful and popular sports stars in Spain, Fernando Alonso, who recently announced his return to the sport next season.

The unprecedented five-part docuseries showcases Alonso’s passion for competing at the highest level and his utter determination to win. Documenting the past year, from his participation in the most important circuits like Indianapolis 500, Le Mans 24 hours and culminating in his first outing at Dakar Rally in January, Fernando gives viewers access to the Formula One World Champion. The docuseries also features Alonso’s inner circle including: his manager Luis García Abad, his sister Lorena Alonso, his partner Linda Morselli and his colleague Carlos Sainz, who all help to reveal the man behind the champion.

"Fernando" is produced by THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO and has Laura Fernández Espeso, Javier Méndez and Bernat Elías as Executive Producers. 

MEDIAPRO Canada has secured distribution deals with a range of broadcasters around the world, bringing coverage of the Island Games Canadian Premier League 2020 Final between Forge FC and HFX Wanderers to close to 135 million television households in 65 territories.

The global exposure is remarkable for a league in only its second season and is a testament to the superb quality of play on the pitch and the world-renowned production values of MEDIAPRO, which will have a crew of 25 professionals onsite at the tournament’s hub in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, to cover the final with 11 cameras, including four super slo-mo cameras.

Four broadcasters are airing all 35 games in the 2020 season, led by Fox Sports in the US, which will show a total of 18 matches (37.5 hours of live coverage) on its FS2 linear channel, with the remaining 17 on its dedicated soccer service Fox Soccer Plus (24.5 hours of live coverage). The first match aired on FS2, Pacific FC v York9, earned the highest audience of the day on the channel.

Also showing all 35 games are 1Sports in the Indian subcontinent (India, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka), StarTimes, the digital operator serving some 13 million pay-TV subscribers in 47 territories across sub-Saharan Africa, and Premier Football, the new dedicated soccer channel in the Philippines, which launched last week with live coverage of the English Premier League, and is available to close to 4m pay-TV subscribers.

Live coverage of the Group Stage, featuring the top four clubs after 28 First Stage games, and the Final will reach over 6 million homes across Latin America through DirecTV Go, the streaming platform operated by US telecoms giant AT&T, and Tigo Sports, the sports channel owned by Swedish telco Millicom.

Additionally, MEDIAPRO Canada’s dedicated soccer channel OneSoccer offers live coverage of all CPL games to subscribers worldwide, while the CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, has shown live Saturday double-header coverage throughout the tournament and will air exclusive free-to-air coverage of Saturday’s final.

As with all previous 34 games in the First and Group stages, the coverage of the Final will be enhanced with the Augmented Reality (AR) stadium, Canada's first virtual stadium for a professional sporting competition, developed by MEDIAPRO Group company wTVision.

The AR-built stadium was created using wTVision's control applications, AR software and a dedicated broadcast design team, and the immersive virtual stadium is part of a safe and groundbreaking solution that ensures that live sporting events can be broadcast to fans at home with the same visual impact.

See video AR-built stadium

The International TV Arts and Sciences Academy has announced its nominees for the International Emmy Awards with “Pequeña Victoria” among them. This Oficina Burman (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO) Viacom International Studios (VIS) co-production which premiered last season on the Argentine channel Telefé, is up for the Best Soap-Opera award alongside other nominees from three productions from China, Portugal and Brazil.

The announcement from the Academy to the nominees was broadcast by Bruce L. Paisner, the chairman and executive director of the International TV Arts and Sciences Academy highligting the commitment of the audiovisual industry “in times which have seen a majority of the world’s population have to stay at home with television helping to entertain us and provide a window on the world".

The awards ceremony is set to take place on November 23rd in New York.

Julieta Díaz, Natalie Pérez, Inés Estévez, Mariana Genesio, Luciano Castro, Daniel Hendler, Facundo Arana and Nicolás Francella star in the comedy in which the birth of a baby unites the paths of the four women with different stories.

From an Erika Halvorsen and Daniel Burman original idea, the creators of the story are Erika Halvorsen, Mara Pescio, Ana Accorsi, Martín Vatenberg and Daniel Burman.

Plot

Jazmín (Julieta Díaz) is a successful executive who hired, without telling anyone, Bárbara’s (Natalie Pérez) belly, to be able to be a mum without the pregnancy getting in the way of her career. Bárbara accepts the deal in return for a cash payment to help improve the quality of her life. When she’s just about to give birth, she orders a cab to go to the hospital and on the way, she meets Selva (Inés Estévez), the driver, who helps her, takes the decision not to leave the side of the new born. By surprise Emma (Mariana Genesio), a transsexual woman sperm donor appears at the hospital.

The all decide to break the rules of bringing up a baby and want to share the task forming a tight bond which comes not from the pregnancy itself but rather the relationship they develop with the baby.

TV3 has recently premiered “Barcelona 2050. Urgent challenges for a sustainable future”, a documentary by Joan Úbeda, produced by Barcelona Global and THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO, which tackles the future of Barcelona at a time when a new concept of city-planning has never been so necessary for a city open to talent, sustainability and leveraging its opportunities.

Is the city finished" What projects are needed to activate the Barcelona of the future" How to adjust the city to climate change, accessible housing, the need to attract talent, the new mobility and new technologies" Now more than ever Barcelona can’t afford to stand still.

In the documentary “Barcelona 2050. Urgent challenges for a sustainable future”, thirty people closely linked to the city reflect on the guide-lines for new projects wishing to tackle the development of the city within the context of a digital society and emerging climate change.

These people, behind current urban projects, experts in technology, science, smart cities, energy, culture and job creation talk about the size of the city, the ability to attract talent and promote entrepreneurship and innovation, the complex housing problem, sustainability, the unavoidable challenge of inclusion, the need to re-think local government, and strengthening the ties between public and private enterprise and highlighting some areas of the city with particular potential for growth, such as the Tres Xemeneies, Besòs, the Zona Franca, Sagrera and Bon Pastor.

The main themes of the documentary, directed by Joan Úbeda, are based on a series of meetings with town-planning chiefs responsible for a host of current projects in the city and other experts about the cities of the future. From April to July 2019, more than 70 members of Barcelona Global took part in six breakfast meetings which saw them presented with the current projects occupying town-planners, reflect on the future and create content and knowledge for the creation of the documentary.

“Barcelona 2050. Urgent challenges for a sustainable future” is a Barcelona Global THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO production, with the support of Aigües de Barcelona and Consorci Barcelona Zona Franca.

See documentary "TV3 A la carta"