Click here to read the full article.
Serielizados, Spain’s second largest audience-driven film/TV festival after San Sebastián, has unwrapped its main competition programs at this year’s edition, set to unspool onsite over Oct. 19-28 in Barcelona and a month
later on streaming service Filmin,
Headlining the official national competition as a world premiere is the second season of Movistar Plus+’s and 100 Balas’ “Celeste”, one of Spain’s most successful TV shows which won best screenplay at Serielizados 2024 after triumphing at Series Mania Panorama with a best series plaudit plus best actress win for Carmen Machi.
The latter who wooed viewers with her portrait of tax inspector Sara Santano, returns here with a new tax evasion case. “Celeste”’s creator Diego San José and director Elena Trapé, both behind Serielizados’ best screenplay winner “Jakarta in 2025, will be back in Barcelona together with Machi.
Co-produced with Arte France, and one of the most anticipated of new shows from Movistar Plus, “Killing a Bear” (“Matar a un oso”) will also bow in the national competition, with top showrunners Jorge and Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo and cast on hand.
Inspired by real events, the six-parter centers on the first criminal investigation in Spain into the killing of a wild animal, following the death of bear Cachou in the Pyrenees’ Aran Valley in 2020. In the title roles are Eduard Fernández, María Rodríguez Soto, Miki Esparbé, Pol López, Nora Navas and Àlex Monner.
Both “Killing a Bear” and “Celeste 2” will compete against the previously announced national entries “In Vitro” from HBO Max-3Cat, which is the fest’s opening title, and “Segunda Temporada” from Filmin.
Toplining Serielizados’ second biggest showcase – the six-title international competition – is the French-German-Dutch co-production “Etti” with star creator Hagai Levi (“In Treatment,” “Scenes from a Marriage”) expected at the Catalan premiere.
Based on the diaries of Dutch writer Etty Hillesum, Arte France’s banner drama turns on a young woman’s turbulent affair with her psychologist against the background of a contemporary Nazi-occupied Amsterdam which promotes Hillesum to take a extraordinary and exemplary ethical stand. It will arrive in Barcelona after festival runs in Venice -out of competition- and Series Mania.
Strongly repped at Serielizados, Arte France will also showcase the buzzy French series “Camarades” for which Manon Kneuzé earned a best actress prize at this year’s Series Mania. The satire from creators Benjamin Charbit (“Zorro”) and Dominique Baumard (“The Bureau”), is set during the May 1968 student uprisings. The premiere on arte.tv is set for Sept. 16.
From the U.K. are two high-end drama entries already picked up by Spanish streaming services.
BBC comedy “Ann Droid,” about a self-help robot, would well conquer Serielizados and Filmin viewers with “its irreverent yet touching take on grief and human relationships,” the festival says in a statement. The show, starring and created by Emmy-nominated Diane Morgan (“Mandy,” “Cunk”) was recently renewed by the BBC on the back of its 7.6 million views for the opening episode, making it the U.K. pubcaster’s second biggest new scripted launch of 2026.
In another genre, “Dirty Business” to be showcased in Spain on Movistar Plus, is a factual drama ordered by Channel 4, in which David Thewlis and Jason Watkins play two unlikely detectives, investigating an environmental disaster.
German drama “A Better Place” combines suspense and social commentary about the failing of the prison system. The first German TV show produced by Studiocanal’s German TV arm, Studiocanal Series, teaming with Komplizenbfor WDR/ARD Degeto, will be repped in Barcelona by co-creator Alexander Lindh.
Also under the ARD-WDR banner is “Naked,” A bold series about sex addiction and the limits of desire to be repped on-site by creator and co-writer Silke Eggert.
Presiding over the international competition is prominent Spanish director Rodrigo Sorgoyen, shortlisted to represent Spain at the Oscars with his Cannes competition contender “The Beloved.” He will be joined by hot Spanish showrunner comedian Victoria Martín behind Movistar Plus+’s “Se tiene que morir mucha gente,” one of Spain’s biggest TV hits of the year.
Claire-Marine Pietriga from Canneseries and Berlinale Series advisor Rowan Woods will be joined on the national competition jury by Roosa Toivonen, a Finnish producer and co-head of the Tallinn Black Nights Film festival’s industry series arm TV Beats.
Commenting on the competition lineups, Serielizados co-head Betu Martínez who viewed with his selection committee over 200 shows for consideration, said the festival motto for this year could be “life through series” as every selected show “mirrors current societal anxieties, with a strong authorial voice.”
Trend-wise, he emphasised the “strong shift towards European production, particularly from Northern and Central Europe,”, and the expanding role of public broadcasters as cultural gatekeepers and risk takers, “backing bold, out-of-the-box auteur series like “Naked” or “A Better Place.”
Martínez also underscored Serielizados’ equally crucial goal to defend “series that truly matter.” This year’s festival motto “An Eye For It,” referring to the event’s cultural curation remit. “In an era of overabundance driven by algorithms, a festival’s core job is editorial curation. we act as a filter,” he insisted.
Other festival highlights of Serielizados’ 13th edition include a talk with Catalan nouvelle cuisine trailblazer Ferran Adrià about the 3Cat drama “Genesis,” set to play on Netflix in Spain after its airs on the Catalan pubcaster.
A prime showcase for Catalan productions and co-productions, the festival will screen the Finnish-Italian-Spanish heavy metal animation show “Belzebubs,” ahead if its premiere on 3Cat, and the U.S. episodic sci-fi from Marc Martínez Jordán, “Future Manifest.”
Committed as well to new talent and formats, the festival will also stage a Catalan-language Microseries Showcase, organised with Igualada’s Zoom Awards and EVA platform.
Spain’s other fast-expanding regional hub for top talent and indie productions, the Basque Country, already spotlighted at the festival in 2025, will bring two shows from pubcaster EITB: the female-driven “Aloka(h)iru” co-helmed by Alba Lozano and Nitya López, and “Estu” from the artistic collective Arriguri.
Other sections focus on immigration, with Belgium’s “The Best Immigrant” and Germany’s “All Heroes Are Bastards” as well as comedy in all its shapes.
Making their Spanish debut are NBC’s US sports mockumentary “The Fall and Rose of Reggie Dinkins,” Focus Features’ “Lorne,” about Saturday Night Live’s creator Lorne Michaels, and TVNZ’s parody of spy pics “New Zealand Spy.”
Serielizados saw single visits soar 80% in 2025 to 16,000 on-site visitors and 194,000 viewers on the streamer Filmin. It will soon release the program of its industry days Serielizados Pro headed by festival co-founder Víctor Sala.
