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“La Mesías,” the multi-prized series created by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, behind the Cannes best-director winning “La bola negra,” will be released by Mubi in U.K., Canada, Turkey, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria,
streaming exclusively from Sept. 3.
A Movistar Plus Original, produced in collaboration with Ambrossi and Calvo’s label Suma Content, “La Mesías” will also stream on Mubi in France, Mubi announced Thursday. The deal was closed with Movistar Plus International. Mubi will launch with a two-episode premiere.
A step-up from “Veneno,” which made a splash on HBO in the U.S., six-part series “La Mesías” delivered a example of the full-on ambition of Los Javis, as Ambrossi and Calvo are known in Spain, which was seen again in “La bola negra,” one of the highest-profile Cannes main competition contenders which sparked rave reviews, and a bidding war for the U.S. rights.
“La Mesías,” Los Javis’ title just prior to “La bola negra,” begins with thirtysomething loner Enric watching a viral video of Stella Maris, a Christian pop band. His reaction? He literally wets himself. For the singers are his younger sisters. Memories flood back of his own childhood and youth, traumatized by his parents’ religious fanaticism which climaxes in mother Montse declaring herself the daughter of God, and that the words her daughters sing are dictated to her by God and part of her mission to save humanity via music.
Enric escaped. He now determines to save his sisters. Action flashes back and forward from a present-day 2013 to the 1980s when Enric and slightly younger sister Irene are kids, to around 1997, catching them in their late teens.
The production shot for 25 weeks totally on location, mostly at 30 rural sites outside Barcelona. The series featured 170 characters and 3,800 extras. 1980s flashbacks are sometimes lensed in 16 mm, capturing the impressionism of memory. The series genre hops: Episode 1 blends psychodrama and sci-fi, for example. Ep. 2 has a procedural pulse; Episode 3 works like a real-life musical.
For all its style, the series delivers a powerful sense of the importance of family education.
To mark Mubi’s release announcement, it has shared with Variety a new international trailer, which captures Enric (Roger Casamayor, “Pan’s Labyrinth”) as he seeks out sister Irene (Macarena García), literally scarred by the past, to help him rescue his sisters, plus the presentation of an early video, “lyrics by God,” says one little sister, and later bizarre Christian pop rap, created by Spanish underground duo Carlos Ballesteros and Genís Segarra. Rosalía producer Raül Refree composed the series’ original soundtrack.
Messianic matriarch Montse is played at different ages by Ana Rujas (“Cardo”), Cannes best actress winner Lola Dueñas (“Volver,” “La bola negra”) and Carmen Machi, star of Series Mania winner “Celeste.”
“It’s very difficult to unlearn what you’ve been taught – I’m talking about education – the past resounds in your body for ever. That touches me in many ways. As a son, a member of the LGBT collective. The series talks about religion, but as a form of education and this is what makes it interesting,” Javier Calvo said on a Variety set visit to the isolated family house, hidden in wooded mountains south of Barcelona.
“La Mesías” world premiered at San Sebastián Festival in 2023, where it gleaned glowing reviews. It went on to become the first Spanish series to be selected for the Sundance Festival, win direction and a Student Audience Award at Series Mania and, released by Arte France, be hailed by La Liberation as “one of the most beautiful series of the year.”
Picked up off Cannes by Netflix, “La bola negra” is now being positioned as an awards contender.
