“The Good Boss”, written and directed by Fernando León de Aranoa, and produced together with Jaume Roures, goes on general release this Friday in more than 270 cinemas around Spain distributed by TRIPICTURES. Starring Javier Bardem in the role of the owner of a family business, this film has an extensive cast that including names like Manolo Solo, Almudena Amor, Óscar de la Fuente, Sonia Almarcha, Fernando Albizu, Tarik Rmili, Rafa Castejón, Celso Bugallo, Martín Páez and Yael Belicha.

This fierce and funny satire, which made its world-wide premiere at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, has been selected by the Spanish Film Academy to represent Spain at the 94th edition of the Oscars in the Best Foreign Film category.

Plot

Básculas Blanco, a Spanish company producing industrial scales in a provincial Spanish town awaits an imminent visit from a committee which holds their fate in their hands as to whether they merit a local Business Excellence award: everything has to be perfect when the time comes. Working against the clock, the company’s proprietor, Blanco (Bardem) pulls out all the stops to address and resolve issues with his employees, crossing every imaginable line in the process. 

THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO Distribution touches down at MIPCOM 2021 with a catalogue of entertainment and media content ranging from critically and publicly acclaimed series, new drama projects in production and pre-production, documentaries about some of the world’s leading sports stars, and groundbreaking entertainment formats, films, together with several of the company portfolio’s classic and most emblematic series.

From 11 to 14 October, MIPCOM becomes the showcase for new drama productions “Express” (Starzplay, Pantaya) and “La edad de la ira” (Atresmedia, Masficción), introducing subjects as impelling as the consequences of an express kidnapping or adolescent conflict when it comes to assuming a different sexual identity. The catalogue also includes series “Paraíso” (Movistar +), “The Boarding School: Las Cumbres” (Atresmedia, Amazon) and “Nasdrovia” (Movistar +), the success of which has led to all three currently being in full post-production of their second seasons. New episodes of “Paco’s Men” (Atresmedia), a mythical series adapted a decade ago for distribution in Italy, Russia, Romania, Greece and Bulgaria, completes the offer of Spanish-made shows.

THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO will also present drama series produced at its international offices, as is the case of Latin American productions “Código Implacable”, thriller produced in association with SPT for Claro Video, and “Las Bravas”, drama series produced for WarnerMedia. Other international titles present at MIPCOM include “Pulse” (Media Musketeers),  a horror series in which a video game becomes its creators' worst nightmare and “58 segundos” (Blackbox Multimedia), a drama focused on the work of volunteer doctors and health workers on international missions, currently in the development stage at THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO offices in the UK.

Among the highlights of the Studio's offer are entertainment formats, “El discípulo del chef”, the show that goes one step further in the competitive cooking reality TV show featuring 3 prestigious chefs, not only as judges, but who also compete against one another together with their teams; and “Crush” (Phileas Productions), an original gameshow and current hit in Vietnam, where contestants must get the answers right to avoid being buried under a giant safe.

“Fernando”, with a second season already available on Amazon Prime Video, is the perfect example of documentary film about sports stars, a genre in which THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO specializes with other titles such as “Six Dreams” and “All or Nothing”.

To round off the offer, “MelodyTooms” is an animated format designed for younger audiences; and, of course, the company’s most emblematic series: “The Head”, “Locked Up”, “The Boat”, “Caronte”, “I’m Alive” and “Malaka”, among many more; together with non-fiction titles including “The Dinner of a Lifetime” and full-length features “Mondays In the Sun”, “Three Steps Above Heaven”, “Midnight in Paris” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”.

LVP (MEDIAPRO Group), the world’s leading competition organizer in the Spanish language, and Ibai Llanos, the famous Basque content creator and former LVP caster will be joining forces for the broadcast of the League of Legends Worlds, the most important eSports competition on the global calendar.

With this partnership, which is a repeat of the successful format used in the recent MSI League of Legends competition, the first matches of each game-day will be shown on Ibai Llanos’ Twitch channel, with the subsequent games being broadcast exclusively on the LVP channel with Ibai joining the official LVP commentary team alongside Víctor “Wolk” Fernández, Sergio “Teshrak” Cerdan, David “Champi” Pérez, Ainhoa “Noa” Campos, David “Skain” Carbó and Jaime Mellado.  

For the playoffs, just as at the MSI, the first map of every game from the quarter-finals onwards will be shown on Ibai Llanos’ channel, with the rest of matches being shown on LVP’s channels. The semi-final and the grand final of the Worlds, set for October 30th and 31st and November 6th respectively, will be shown exclusively on the LVP Twitch channel.

“We’re delighted to team up again with Ibai for the broadcast of the most important eSports event in the world. We received excellent feedback from the community after the format used in the MSI, and thanks to the effort made by all those involved we’re looking forward to repeating the experience again making it the best possible viewer experience. I’m convinced that our production values, together with the talent of our commentary team along with Ibai, will see us make history again in the sector”, explains Jordi Soler, CEO of LVP.  

The group phase of the Worlds, which will feature the combined broadcasts of LVP and Ibai Llanos, is set to kick off next Monday from 1 in the afternoon. 

Filming has recently got underway in Barcelona of the new Playz series, “Ser o no ser”, a teenage comedy drama set in a sixth-form college classroom. It tells the story of Joel, a 16-year-old transgender teenager who dreams of being a film star whilst at the same time facing the emotional challenges of his recent sex change.

The series, consisting of six 25-minute episodes, is produced by RTVE together with Big Bang Media (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO) for Playz, the RTVE digital channel aimed at younger audiences. It was created and written by Coral Cruz and directed by Marta Pahissa.

“Ser o no ser” sees the acting debuts of the young transgender actor Ander Puig, who plays the main character Joel. The young cast is completed by Júlia Gibert, Berta Galo, Lion, and new faces such as Enzo Oliver, Nil Carbonell, Eduardo Torres and Anna Bernal. In addition, Emma Vilarasau is on the small screen after nearly a decade devoted to the theatre in the role of Carmen, the drama teacher. Anna Alarcón plays the mother of the main character.

“Ser o no ser”

Since the start of the project and throughout the pre-production process, the series team has been able to call on professional help from two members of the transgender community:  Miquel Missé (sociologist) and Damian Díaz (educator).  Both have been present in key moments of the fact-gathering stage of the series creation process as well as the scripting and auditions for the project.

“Ser o no ser” is a series which tackles the issues without prejudice raising awareness of the experiences of a community which for many is little known or completely ignored by others. It sets out to be a transformative series, which raises the profile of the transgender community and its experiences which for many in wider society is an unknown quantity. Its mission is be a ground-breaking series which raises awareness of transgender issues in a natural way with large doses of humor in a society which includes a wider range of identities and gender expressions among teenagers and young adults than ever before.

Plot

Joel, a 16-year-old transgender teenager, starts the last two years of school in a new school where nobody knows him. For a few months he’s been undergoing a sex-change and now he has a chance to introduce himself to his new class-mates as he had always seen himself.

However, still a little shy and hiding his process of transition brings him into conflict with his drama teacher, who asks all the students to take off any masks to be able to devote themselves completely to their roles. Joel is scared of not being accepted and also losing Ona’s interest in him, a class-mate, who he fell in love with at first sight.

Tuesday saw the presentation at the Sitges Festival Sitges of the second season of “Paraíso” in the festival schedule as well as analyzing the special effects used in the series by the production team and the lead actors.

“Paraíso” is a Movistar+ original production together with THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO directed by Fernando González Molina (“El guardián invisible”, “Legado en los huesos”, “Ofrenda a la tormenta”). An ambitious fantasy genre production which combines drama and adventure with excitement and mystery.

The event saw González Molina (director and creator) and the actors Macarena García, Álvaro Mel and Begoña Vargas together with Elías M. Félix (director of photography) and Isidro Jiménez (director of Post-production at TELSON) all present. The entire team took part in the presentation entitled “How we created the ‘Paraíso’” fantasy universe, as part of the Sitges Festival program.

The first season of “Paraíso” is available via the Movistar+ on demand service.

Highlights of the second season

“As every good fantasy series second season, it’s going to be a more playful, darker, slightly more sexual, more adult, trying to satisfy our feelings about what the viewers have been wanting. More special efforts, more complicated technological challenges. In short, we’ve tried our hardest to out do what we did in the first season”, explains Fernando González Molina, director and co-creator of the series.

The cast sees Macarena García (Goya Award winner for Best Debut Performance for “Blancanieves”), Iñaki Ardanaz (“La víctima número ocho”), Gorka Otxoa (“Pagafantas”, “Fe de etarras”) and the young actors Pau Gimeno (“Billy Elliot”), Cristian López (“El rey León”, “Billy Elliot”), Leon Martínez (“Merlí”, “Superlópez”), Héctor Gozalbo (“Nada será igual”), María Romanillos (“Antidisturbios”, “Las consecuencias”), and Patricia Iserte, among others.

The actress Macarena García is back as Costa in the second season of “Paraíso”: “It’s my first ever fantasy series. I think it’s hardly ever been done in Spain before, which is always a risk but the quality levels of the production and the special effects have been incredible”, she outlined.

This second season also sees some new actors join the cast: Álvaro Mel (“La Fortuna”) in the role of Mateo, Begoña Vargas (“Las leyes de la Frontera”) as Evelyn, Laura Laprida plays Valentina and Carla Domínguez in the role of Anabel.

The actor Álvaro Mel highlighted during the presentation: “It’s my first fantasy series and I’m delighted with the whole process because Fernando’s vision and his enthusiasm are huge and it’s been an amazing experience”.

The actress Begoña Vargas talked about the character she plays: "Evelyn is a character with multiple facets and it’s been a great experience for me trying to recreate them all. She’s 300 years old and a super villain. She’s arrived in Almanzora de la Vega to set the cat amongst the pigeons".

Plot of season 2

It's three years since the events of the first season and another group of No Muertos, the Novavis, appear in Almanzora. Their goal is to destroy the town to be able to carry out their regeneration ritual. The life of the family members and friends of Javi and his gang are in serious trouble. Alongside all this there's another mystery, the true origin of Javi, a secret kept hidden by his parents since his birth.

With a huge technical deployment and a 25 strong team, Mediapro Colombia was on hand for the production and broadcast of the 34th South American Women’s Volleyball Championships which took place in Barrancabermeja, in the Santander region of Colombia.

For the event the technical equipment included multi-destination HD OB van with 8 broadcast cameras, three wide-angle cameras, two replay servers, two 42x lens cameras and two screens for the referees, a satellite broadcast transmission system, an IFB system and an electrical generator. Mediapro Columbia sent a 25 strong team for the project which featured technical directors, camera operators, camera assistants, replay operators and a sound team.

Over the five days of competition, 10 matches were played between the five countries taking part: Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. The games were broadcast by both national and international operators with the signal reaching 22 countries.  

Mediapro Colombia once again demonstrated its capacity to carry out the production and broadcast of any sporting event.