The MEDIAPRO Group will be taking part in the Berlin International Film Festival on February 11 with “The Paradise”, a fiction series starring Fran Perea and Riitta Havukainen who are currently on location shooting in Fuengirola (Malaga). For the first time, MEDIAPRO will take part in the Spanish series panel at the festival, represented by Ran Tellem (Emmy award-winner as executive producer on “Homeland”), head of International Content Development for the Group.
Tellem will present the fiction series within the framework of the ‘Upcoming Series from Spain’, organised by the Festival Internacional de Series de Barcelona, a ‘thriller’ developed by Tellem being shot at different locations on the Costa del Sol until mid-April, after filming in the Finnish city of Oulu and the surrounding areas. ‘The Paradise’ is a co-production between Finnish public television Yle, who are planning to release the series in late 2019-, MRP Matila Röhr Productions Oy and MEDIAPRO.
The 8-episode fiction, starring Fran Perea – whose popularity in Finland is due to his role in “The Serranos”- plays a policeman who is charged with solving a complex case involving disappearances and murders in the heart of the Finnish community in Fuengirola. While on the case, he encounter’s a veteran Finnish detective, played by Riitta Havukainen (“Fakta homma”, “Harjunpää ja heimolaiset”), who travels to Spain for one last assignment.
“The Paradise”, whose main screenwriter is Matti Laine (author of “Bordertown”), is directed by Marja Pyykkö (“Hooked”, “Black Windows”).
MEDIAPRO have been present at several editions of the Berlinale with a total of six films, “Comandante”, by Oliver Stone, was the first in 2003; “Amador”, by Fernando León de Aranoa was selected in 2011; in 2014, the Group scheduled the international release of “El Somni” (The Dream), by Franc Aleu; and in 2015, the film chosen to inaugurate the festival was “Nobody Wants The Night”, by Isabel Coixet, while “The Pearl Button”, by Patricio Guzmán, won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay. In 2017 Fernando León de Aranoa returned to the festival with “Politics, Instructions Manual”.
PHOTO: Fran Perea and Riitta Havukainen ©anabelenfernandez
