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“La Bola Negra” writer-director-producers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi are set to exec produce an ambitious, new HBO Max drama series now in development in Spain and created by preeminent Spanish screenwriters Fran
Araújo and Eduard Sola.
A co-writer on Alberto Rodriguez’s “The Anatomy of a Moment” nominated for an International Emmy last week, Araújo won a screenplay Goya for “One Year, One Night,” co-wrote Movistar Plus’ crime hits “Hierro” and “Rapa,” and served as an executive producer on most of Movistar Plus’ greatest and most daring drama series, including Calvo and Ambrossi’s own “La Mesías, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The New Years” and Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s “Querer.”
Sola co-created “Querer” the Series Mania 2025 top prize winner, wrote Catalan movie breakout “A House on Fire” and HBO Max’s admired 2026 anti-gentrification series “Ravalear: Not for Sale,” selected for the Berlinale.
Uniting a mouthwatering younger pedigree talent package, the down-the-decades drama series is freely inspired by tragic events which took place at the remote mountain hamlet of Tor in the high Pyrenees. Those events still remain unresolved.
“Blending mystery, suspense and human drama, the project will revisit the events and legends surrounding a case that continues to captivate Spain to this day,” HBO Max announced Wednesday, going on to describe the crime series as an “ambitious adaptation inspired by real events.”
“Tor is so much more than a crime. So much more than 2,300 hectares of forest. Tor is a universe itself, extraordinarily rich in characters and landscapes. A place of passage between two countries, shaped by historical events that have left their mark on the landscape and on the few people who inhabit it. A place imbued with an ancient magic,” Araújo and Sola said.
“As screenwriters, it is a privilege to start from a world so fertile for storytelling, and even more so to do it alongside Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, two of the most stimulating creative minds in this country. We begin this challenge deeply grateful to HBO Max for their trust, and eager to immerse ourselves in a mountain that we know has a way of drawing in everyone who ventures into it.”
The project is set up at Calvo and Ambrossi’s Suma Content, which developed their “La Mesías,”acclaimed as one of the greatest of recent Spanish series, and “La Bola Negra,” which won them a shared Cannes Best Director award and a TIFF People’s Choice Award, often a bellwether for Academy Award Best Picture nomination.
“It is incredibly exciting to open this new chapter at Suma Content, and we feel that this series could become one of its flagship productions because of its scale and vision. Working with Fran Araújo and Eduard Sola, two of the great creators and screenwriters in our country, is a privilege,” said Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi.
“The mystery surrounding the mountain of Tor has always intrigued us, and we believe we have a story in our hands with enormous poetic and entertainment potential. We want to create something we haven’t seen before: a series in which nature, landscapes and spaces are protagonists in their own right, while never losing the voices of its characters across decades, within an addictive narrative. We are deeply grateful to HBO Max for believing in this project,” said Calvo and Ambrossi.
“This project brings together some of the most exciting creative voices working in Spain today. Fran Araújo and Eduard Sola have an exceptional ability to create rich, character-driven stories, while Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi continue to push boundaries with their distinctive vision and ambition,” added Guillermo Farré, head of local original production at HBO Max in Spain.
“Inspired by the extraordinary world of Tor, this series has all the elements of a powerful HBO drama, and we are proud to support these creators in bringing it to life,” he went on.
The series is being developed in collaboration with Carles Porta, who wrote a book on the Tor tragedy, “Tor: tretze cases i tres morts.”
