In March 1968, four girls claimed that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them on the Alcaparrosa estate, one kilometer outside the village of El Palmar de Troya, in the province of Seville. Weeks later, several neighbors claimed that there had been other appearances and in the summer of that same year, an altar was built that would be the first stone of the Palmarian Christian church. Those first apparitions gave rise to a religious empire that would extend throughout the world, break with the Vatican and appoint its own popes. In June 2018, Ginés, ex-pope of El Palmar de Troya, and his wife, attacked the congregation's facilities with violence in what was to become the penultimate episode in an extraordinary story that navigates between tragedy and surrealism.
Scandals, the shadow of sexual abuse, improbable anecdotes and all kinds of accusations have marked the more than fifty years of this religious order some consider a church while many others are convinced it's a huge sect.
"El Palmar de Troya" is a four-episode series that meticulously portrays the Palmarian universe. This original non-fiction production features never-before-seen archive footage, recreations and includes the testimonies of Ginés Hernández (the ex-pope Gregorio XVIII) and Nieves Triviño, his wife and former monk at El Palmar, among other witnesses and protagonists.
Directed by Israel del Santo ("Conquistadores: Adventvm"), "El Palmar de Troya" comes from a long investigation that lasted more than three years and which delves fully into the bowels of the Palmarian universe to tell a true, unpublished, delusional, and dark tale surrounded by mystery.
EPISODES
1. Blessed art thou
Seville, 1968. After an alleged appearance of the Virgin Mary on a farm near the town of El Palmar de Troya, seers and neighbors in ecstasy begin to proliferate in the area. From then on, El Palmar becomes a town destined to become frontpage news worldwide. It is at this point, Clemente Domínguez and Manuel Alonso appear, two fundamental characters in this story and who start a fight for power. Soon there is friction, disbelief, devotion and tension among the seers.
2. Among women
After an accident, Clemente becomes blind, helpless and depressed. With the help of the most faithful Palmarians and, above all, Manuel Alonso, Clemente recovers and retakes faith in himself and takes the accident as a sign. His message is well-received by followers around the world and he ends up proclaiming himself Pope of El Palmar de Troya, even challenging the Vatican.
3. Be careful of false prophets
Clemente is at the peak of his popularity and lives submerged in a binge of power. Emboldened and with everything in his favor, he announces that God will return his sight, but the miracle never happens, and the first internal tensions begin. Parties, homosexual relationships, suspicion of abuse and what the congregation is turning into, generates a loss of trust that ends with excommunication and expulsions of the order. The end of the first Palmarian papacy is near.
4. Wolves in sheep's clothing
Manuel Alonso succeeds Clemente at the head of the Palmarian Church, but his papacy is short-lived. Soon comes the figure of Ginés Hernández, who has increased his power in the shadow and who soon proclaims himself Pope Gregory XVIII. With Ginés the darkest period of the order begins, but his love affair with Nieves Triviño, one of the nuns of El Palmar, sees him relaxing even some of the order's toughest rules.
Premieres Thursday 6th February at 10:00 PM on Movistar+ channel #0 (dial 7) and with a new episode every Thursday. Also available on-demand. 'El Palmar de Troya' is an original production from Movistar+ in association with 100 Balas (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO) and 93 Metros.
Just as filming comes to a close on the fifth and final season from the "Locked up" show, "Locked up: el Oasis", the cast are set to receive a visit from one of the series most loved characters by audiences and critics alike and an unconditional member of the cult show. Produced by FOX Networks Group España and Globomedia (THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO), the production also boasts special collaboration from Alba Flores.
The actress will once again play Saray, the mythical and racial character Alba has been playing for the past four seasons of "Locked up". Alba Flores will make an emotional collaboration wearing the famous yellow jumpsuit one last time. She'll share a storyline with her inseparable Zulema (Najwa Nimri) in a finale that is sure to give the show's now famous legion of fans (the "Yellow Tide"), plenty to talk about.
Saray has fallen in love, she' been married, ousted by her family, raped by Sandoval, given birth and become a mother, has been on the verge of dying from a gunshot from her beloved Zulema, has hated, has loved her friends unconditionally ... Her life in Cruz del Sur first and in Cruz del Norte afterwards has been one long and extraordinary roller coaster ride.
Filming began last October on location between Madrid and Almeria. Composed of eight episodes, and the showrunner Iván Escobar, as well as the scriptwriters Lucía Carballal and JM Ruiz Córdoba. Sandra Gallego, co-executive producer with Iván Escobar, will also direct the fiction with Miguel Ángel Vivas.
The original Atresmedia series, which came to a successful end on free-to-air television on Antena 3, embarked on a new Pay-TV platform in 2018 via FOX Networks Group (FNG) Spain. "Locked up" has been a success for FOX, with some of the best ratings and becoming one of the most popular drama content on Pay-TV in Spain *.
(*) "Locked up" on FOX has had an average of over 300,000 viewers, expanding to half a million if we take into account the audiences who've seen the series in non-linear broadcast, format chosen by 6 out of 10 of its viewers. Data provided by Kantar Media, based only on television consumption, not on other devices.
THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO today announced an alliance with Wild Sheep Content, a production company founded by Erik Barmack, who led the rapid and successful push by Netflix to become one of the world's largest producers of high-quality non-English language film and television. THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO will partner with Wild Sheep in developing and distributing new shows and films globally.
Among the projects that Wild Sheep currently has in development are a French language version of the Stephen King novel, The Plant, produced together with Edouard de Vessine and created by top horror director Alexandre Aja (Crawl); a scripted version of the popular documentary Cocaine Cowboys; and Marked for Life, a Scandinavian series based on Emelie Schepp's best-selling crime novels featuring Swedish prosecutor Jana Berzelius.
Until March 2019, Barmack led international production strategy at Netflix, initiating in five years more than 100 productions in over 25 countries. Among them are widely-regarded hits like The Witcher (Poland), Dark (Germany), Kingdom (Korea), La Casa de Papel, Elite & The Cable Girls (Spain), The Rain (Denmark), Sacred Games (India), La Casa De Las Flores & Club De Cuervos (Mexico) and Suburra (Italy).
"We warmly welcome Erik and Wild Sheep Content to THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO family. His experience in successfully developing a wide range of popular and award-winning shows from countries across the globe make him the ideal strategic partner in developing our production and distribution objectives," said Laura Fernández Espeso, Corporate and Television Director of THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO.
"It's an amazing time to connect different voices and perspectives in storytelling with audiences around the world and I'm delighted that Wild Sheep Content will be working closely with THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO, which has a proven capacity to successfully launch a diverse slate of content through networks and streaming companies around the world," said Barmack, the CEO of Wild Sheep Content.
THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO is the content creation, production and distribution factory of the MEDIAPRO Group. THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO is responsible for creating high-quality international content in association with the very best Spanish and international talent, including Paolo Sorrentino, Woody Allen, Isabel Coixet, Ran Tellem, Oliver Stone, Daniel Burman, Fernando León de Aranoa, Iván Escobar, Javier Fesser, Patricio Guzmán, Borja Cobeaga, Diego San José, Marc Cistaré, Manuel Huerga, Ernesto Daranas, Gastón Duprat, Mariano Cohn, Laura Belloo, Marc Vigil, Fernando González Molina, Javier Olivares and Ruth García. The MEDIAPRO Group, with 58 offices distributed across four continents, 14 of which develop and produce content, launched 34 series in 2019 with a global investment of 200 million for productions of series, films, entertainment programs, short-formats and documentaries. Projects by the Group include the latest Woody Allen film, shot on location in San Sebastian this August. MEDIAPRO has partnered with key industry players worldwide including HBO, Netflix, Amazon, DirectTV, Fox, Viacom, Yle and Disney, on award-winning productions which have earned international awards including 2 Oscars, 2 Golden Globes, multiple Goya awards and 2 Daytime Emmy Awards.
Wild Sheep Content is an international production company built for the age of global streaming. Established by Erik Barmack in 2019, Wild Sheep is uniquely poised to provide high quality and varied local language programming to distributors seeking to please a global audience as on-demand watching grows rapidly worldwide.
MEDIAPRO and LaLiga today presented the findings from the 'Study of football consumption in public venues', which finds that football is an activity boosting and income generating for the hospitality sector, at the event attended by Jaume Roures, managing Partner of the MEDIAPRO Group and Javier Tebas, LaLiga president.
The principal findings from the survey show that football attracts more than 15 million fans to public venues every season, which in addition to the excitement of the competition, come in search of socializing and to share the atmosphere with friends. Venue goers are mostly young, very gender balanced, with similar behavior in rural and urban areas, and spend an average of 13 euros per person.
The major survey was carried out in bars and public venue throughout Spain and has served as a basis for analyzing football consumption in these establishments and to discover detailed and specific data about what it means for a bar to have LaLiga content.
Football is the king of sports in Spain, the most popular in bars, and the LaLiga is competition with the greatest number of followers. 15 million fans go to a bar at least once a season, 5.2 million regularly (at least once a month) and 2.6 million go every weekend to watch LaLiga matches at a public establishment.
As for viewer profiles, it is a mostly young audience, 55% are under 44 years old and in terms of gender equality in the 18-34 year-old segment the study shows how balanced the number is with 51% women and 49% men who watch football in public places.
Another characteristic fact detected by the MEDIAPRO survey is that in bars soccer is enjoyed with friends. 75% of fans who go to these establishments to watch football, do so in the company of friends, and the average group size is of five people who come together to watch the matches. These groups spend an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes at the venue with an average consumption of 13 euros per person per game.
The study shows that fans who go to a bar seek the added value of the company and socialization. 53% of respondents highlighted socialization as the main attraction factor and 45% the atmosphere.
To continue protecting the premises who are legally compliant and suffer from unfair competition from pirate bars, LaLiga and MEDIAPRO will continue to work with their Territorial Network of Content License Verifiers, made up of 100 experts distributed throughout Spain. This team is responsible for detecting audiovisual piracy in public establishments and filing the subsequent report with police and legal authorities.
They carry out more than 105,000 visits annually and have already reported over 5,000 premises, resulting in a multitude of police interventions all over Spain with the resulting hundreds of pirate decoders confiscated and initiation of legal proceedings.
Jaume Roures, managing partner of the MEDIAPRO Group, said at the presentation ceremony "the challenge we're facing is continuing to work together with the hospitality sector to make the product more and more attractive".
"Although the numbers are very good and show that football is a dynamic activity in bars, we have to continue polishing this specific content for public establishments. It is our responsibility to give audiences the best product and protect them against pirate venues engaging in unfair competition by stealing football, "added Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga.
About MEDIAPRO
The MEDIAPRO Group manages the right for LaLiga club competitions (LaLiga Santander and LaLiga Smartbank) as well as the UEFA (Champions League and the Europa League) for public establishments throughout Spain.
MEDIAPRO is currently involved in the production of 16 national league competitions across the globe, in addition to being in charge of producing major sporting events of the UEFA Champions League, the FIFA Confederations Cup, Euroleague Basketball, FIBA, FIFA World Cup, Pan American Games, the African Cup of Nations and Formula 1 competitions, among others.
The MEDIAPRO Group produces more than 15 TC channels worldwide, including several specialist sports channels and the Group has acquired a significant rights package for the upcoming four seasons beginning in 2020-21 of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 in France and UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League from 2021-2022.
With 58 offices on four continents, MEDIAPRO is also one of the largest content creators globally with projects for HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Turner, DirectTV, Movistar, FOX, Viacom and Televisa.
About LaLiga
LaLiga is a global organization, innovative and socially responsible, a leader in the leisure and entertainment sector. The private sports association comprising the 20 Clubs / Football and sports associations of the LaLiga Santander and the 22 clubs in the LaLiga SmartBank, responsible for organizing professional football competitions in Spain. LaLiga was broadcast to more than 2.7 billion viewers globally in the 2018/2019 season. With its headquarters in Madrid (Spain) and a presence in 55 countries through its 9 offices and 46 delegations, the association carries out charity work through its Foundation and has become the first ever professional football league to set up a competition for intellectually disabled athletes: LaLiga Genuine Santander.
Turner Latin America and THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO announce that filming is to get underway in March on "Las Bravas F.C.", the drama series set around a women's soccer team, co-produced by both companies. "Las Bravas F.C." is based on an idea by Enrique Pérez Vergara, "Flipy" ("Noobees", "Pepe's Beach Bar", "Olmos and Robles") and will be released this year on the TNT Mexico screen.
Composed of eight 45-minute episodes, "Las Bravas FC" revolves around a modest women's soccer team from a small Mexican town and tells a tale of overcoming difficulty and adversity, where teamwork and the roots of the protagonists determine their relationships.
The dream of "Las Bravas F.C." is to win the regional women's soccer championship. But getting there will not be easy. They will need the support of a professional coach, a job that will fall to the former elite player, Roberto Casas, played by Mexican actor Alfonso Herrera ("Sense 8", "La reina del Sur", "El Dandy"). Forced to hang up his boots earlier than he hoped because of a heart condition and with a certain air of the fallen idol, Casas accept the job based on a bet, forcing him to overcome his pre-conceived ideas and prejudice of not considering women's football a sport.
As such, the series holds a double helping of individuals overcoming their situation; that of the players to conquer their dream and, that of Velarde to adapt to his new reality, return to his origins and face the new challenge before him.
Joining Flipy in the writers room for the series are prestigious writers including José Javier Reguilón ("Locked Up", "Pepe's Beach Bar", "The Boat"), Luis Gamboa ("Diablero", "Paquita la del Barrio", "Ingobernable"), Paula Rendón ("Julia VS Julia", "Impresentables", "Poder SA") and Helen Santiago ("FitLife", "Sopa de Gansos", "ESportsG").
THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO is the content creation, production and distribution factory of the MEDIAPRO Group. THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO is responsible for creating high-quality international content in association with the very best Spanish and international talent, including Paolo Sorrentino, Woody Allen, Isabel Coixet, Ran Tellem, Oliver Stone, Daniel Burman, Fernando León de Aranoa, Iván Escobar, Javier Fesser, Patricio Guzmán, Borja Cobeaga, Diego San José, Marc Cistaré, Manuel Huerga, Ernesto Daranas, Gastón Duprat, Mariano Cohn, Laura Belloo, Marc Vigil, Fernando González Molina, Javier Olivares and Ruth García. The MEDIAPRO Group, with 58 offices distributed across four continents, 14 of which develop and produce content, launched 34 series in 2019 with a global investment of 200 million for productions of series, films, entertainment programs, short-formats and documentaries. Projects by the Group include the latest Woody Allen film, shot on location in San Sebastian this August. MEDIAPRO has partnered with key industry players worldwide including HBO, Netflix, Amazon, DirectTV, Fox, Viacom, Yle and Disney, on award-winning productions which have earned international awards including 2 Oscars, 2 Golden Globes, multiple Goya awards and 2 Daytime Emmy Awards.
TURNER LATIN AMERICA, owned by WarnerMedia, is a global entertainment, sports and news company that creates premium content and provides exceptional experiences to viewers throughout the region when and where they choose to watch their favorite content. These efforts are fueled by data-driven information and industry-leading technology. Turner owns and operates some of the most valuable brands in the world, organized into five content groups: Kids (Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Tooncast); General Entertainment (TNT, TNT Series, Space, TCM, I.Sat, Warner Channel, TBS, HTV, MuchMusic, Glitz * and truTV); News (CNN International, CNN in Spanish, CNN Chile and HLN), and Sports (TNT Sports, Digital Interactive Sports). In the free-to-view TV, the company owns the Chilevisión channel in Chile.
VISYON (Grupo MEDIAPRO) has been selected to participate in an introductory program to virtual reality within an educational setting in Moscow (Russia). The project involves the introduction of a virtual reality solution for high school students suffering from temporary physical disability, helping them to follow distance classes and identify their vocational calling.
VISYON, based in Barcelona and pioneer in the development of immersive technology solutions including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR), has adapted its VRoadcaster platform for the project promoted by the Moscow Innovation Agency. The solution allows users to view content in an immersive manner and customize these according to the needs of each student. By using virtual reality glasses, students can watch videos in a range of formats via the platform, (standard, 180º or 360º) and interactive content in 2D and 3D.
For this project VISYON has had support from the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan government's Business & Knowledge Department's Corporate Competitive Agency (ACCIÓ) through the Foreign Trade & Investment Office in Moscow. The company launched the pilot test of the project in September at a rehabilitation center for children and young people in Moscow that serves around 1,600 people every year.
"The project is aimed at high school students, especially in stages prior to vocational training, attending temporary physical rehabilitation centers and as such, who cannot attend class. We provide an immersive solution so they can follow their courses", said Alicia Cañellas, Innovation and Training consultant at VISYON. To use this platform, students wear virtual reality glasses that allow them to access a range of different content. By way of a digital panel, students can interact with the immersive environment, perform a range of different tasks and evaluate themselves. In the case of people with upper body physical difficulty, the system also enables users to activate the functions only using the eyes.
Next steps
Once this pilot is finished, VISYON expects to begin working on the second phase of the project, where it plans to introduce other functionalities so that students attending rehabilitation centers can follow distance classes through 360º immersive videoconferences and bidirectional communication. "We will install a 360º camera in the classroom so that students can follow what is happening in their educational centers, as if they were really there," added Cañellas.
Furthermore, VISYON also plans to introduce Telepport, its 360º immersive videoconferencing system, in another Moscow Innovation Agency project that seeks to improve the well-being of workers in their workplace.
About VISYON
VISYON (MEDIAPRO Group) is a pioneer in the development of immersive technology solutions including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). Leader in Spain and one of the companies with more experience in the field of Extended Reality (XR) worldwide, VISYON has offices in Madrid, London and Dubai, as well as in Milan, San Francisco and New York. Since its creation it has developed more than 400 projects for clients including The Wall Street Journal, RTVE, Nike, World Bank Group, Samsung, SEAT, Iberdrola, Google, Red Bull and Damm.
