Series Mania-Showcased ‘The Age of Anger’ Probes Teenage Dogma

Ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, soccer’s governing body FIFA is launching a free streaming service.

EXCLUSIVE: Horror-thriller All Fun And Games, starring Asa Butterfield (Sex Education) and Natalia Dyer (Stranger Things), begins production today in Canada with joining cast including Benjamin Evan Ainsworth — who has the title role in Disney’s upcoming Pinocchio — Keith David (Greenleaf) and Annabeth Gish (The Fall of the House of Usher).

When I returned to Manchester Airport’s Terminal 1 today with a bag to check in I was expecting the worst. With the airport boss quitting yesterday after daily pictures and stories of mayhem, I was not hopeful in having a smooth journey to Malaga in the south of Spain.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorThree-part documentary series “Delphine: My Story” tells how the artist Delphine Boël, the illegitimate daughter of King Albert II of Belgium, fought for legal recognition, and is now known as Princess Delphine of Saxe-Coburg. It has been sold to multiple territories, Warner Bros. announced at MipTV in Cannes Tuesday.HBO Max has picked up the show in numerous territories in Europe.

Emiliano De Pablos Emmy Award-winning French toon production-distribution label Dandelooo has clinched a deal with pubcaster France Télévisions for Spanish award-winning 2D animated series “Jasmine & Jambo.”Targeting both upper preschoolers and parents, and bursting with musical notes and humor, “Jasmine & Jambo” is a 27-part series, produced by Barcelona-based company Teidees and Catalan broadcaster Televisió de Catalunya.Directed by Teidees co-founder Silvia Cortés, the show won best international series at the Festival Ecran Jeunesse and was nominated for the Quality in Children’s TV Worldwide award at Prix Jeunesse International.Ensuring a premier broadcast platform, “Jasmine & Jambo” will join the France Télévisions kids and family lineup, available first on streamer Okko from the Fete de la Musique – Music Day – in France on June 21. Also, onboard to bring the music series to Canadian kids are educational networks TFO and Knowledge.

Holly Jones An eerily quaint and picturesque Galician town sets the scene for a chilling high-profile murder in “Rapa,” the highly anticipated follow-up to Spain’s Movistar Plus hit “Hierro.”After coming to the aid of bloodied Mayor Amparo Seoane (Mabel Rivera), lone witness and stymied professor Tomás (Javier Cámara, star of Almodóvar’s “Talk to Her”) becomes obsessed with her murder case and forms an unlikely bond with unyielding Civil Guard Sargent, Maite (Mónica López, “Hierro”). As word of the crime shakes the town, a community’s secrets rise to the surface.Produced by Movistar Plus in conjunction with Portocabo, led by Alfonso Blanco, and expertly directed by Jorge Coira, the six-part series offers up complex and riveting plot twists as questions arise regarding the salient nature between victim and perpetrator.

Emiliano De Pablos In a move that suggests the golden age of true-crime content is also being established in Spain, Madrid-based Onza Distribution has pounced on worldwide rights outside the country to smash hit series “Crímenes” (“Crimes”), by Catalan journalist Carles Porta.Broadcast since 2020 on Catalunya’s public broadcaster TV3 under the Catalan title of “Crims,” the true-crime series’ first two-seasons topped free-to-air TV primetime slots in the region, snagging peaks of 22% audience share.Since January, adapted as “Crímenes” into Spanish language, it launched nationwide on leading paybox Movistar Plus’ premium channel #0 and its VOD service, also generating an enthusiastic audience response. Onza Distribution is presenting “Crimes” to international buyers for the first time ever at MipTV, which runs April, 4-6 in Cannes.With the combination of documentary material and the necessary fictional resources, “Crimes” recounts a series of criminal offenses extracted from recent real-life events in Spain.It invites the viewer to draw their own conclusions from the cases, based on the facts presented with precision, but not forgetting that it’s also entertainment.The true stories were selected for their social impact, the profile of the accused, the complexity of the plot or their surprising resolution.“True crimes are experiencing a great time.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentBanijay has acquired Tooco, the production banner behind the non-scripted hit “Guess My Age,” to further bolster its French outpost. Under the pact, Tooco will be part of the Banijay France brand and will focus on originating concepts for the French and international markets.Tooco, spearheaded by Aurélien Lipiansky and Mikaël Moreau, has been delivering popular French formats, such as Le club des invincibles, produced with Banijay’s Air Production; and Guess My Age which has so far travelled to 22 countries, including Italy, Spain, and Germany.

Emilio Mayorga “Son,” “Cosas de chicos,” “Votamos” and “36” are among eight shorts at this year’s Madrid en Corto, an increasingly key Spanish platform for new talent now in huge demand in a platform age.Recent past editions have included Carlota Pereda’s original “Cerdita,” whose feature version dazzled at January’s Sundance, and shorts from Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, director of Berlin Panorama player “Lullaby,” which swept the Málaga Film Festival on Saturday night, and Javier Marco whose “Josephine” proved a prominent feature debut at September’s San Sebastián. In all, over its 18 editions, titles in Madrid en Corto’s distribution catalog have earned 32 nominations for Spanish Academy Goya Awards. This year, the Goya fiction short winner (Verónica Echegui’s “Totem Loba”) doc short laureate (“Mama”) and “The Monkey,” which snagged best animated short, all feature in Madrid en Corto’s catalog.  Women look likely to make much of the running at this year’s edition, organised by ECAM Distribución, the distribution arm of the enterprising Madrid Film School (ECAM), whose Screen-Incubator has fast become one of the key industry development labs in Spain.

WarnerMedia EMEA & Asia President Priya Dogra has talked up the U.S. media giant’s plan to “ramp up investment in local creative communities across Europe,” with 40 shows in the pipeline for 2023.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentVery few The Mediapro Studio shows, indeed very few Spanish series in general, have lit a fire on the open market like “The Head,” an Antarctic-set thriller which lifts off as a murder mystery to constantly evolve into other realms. Starring Álvaro Morte, “Money Heist’s” Professor and Japanese pop idol Tomohisa Yamashita, written by Alex and David Pastor (“Hogar,” “Carriers”) and directed by Jorge Dorado (“The Department of Time,” “The Pier”), “The Head” broke viewership records on co-financiers Hulu Japan and HBO Asia and sold to over 90 countries including HBO in the U.S. The Mediapro Studio retained IP. “Sales opened doors to new markets and clients with whom we hadn’t worked before,” said Laura Fernández Espeso, CEO of The Mediapro Studio.

Anna Marie de la Fuente At a time when journalists are under attack in many parts of the world and the odious term “fake news” has become part of the global lexicon, Spain’s Mediacrest presents the topical drama series “Fake” at a key event in France-based Series Mania, the invitation-only Spain Pitching Breakfast, on Thursday.Leading the charge is industry vet-producer Gustavo Ferrada (“Klaus,” “Nobody Knows Anybody”), Mediacrest’s executive director of fiction, who joined the fast-rising Spanish production company in January.“Fake” is one of five selected projects from leading Spanish production companies seeking European partners, comprising Fedent España, Friki Films, Onza, Vertice 360 and Mediacrest. Created in-house by Mediacrest’s deputy head of fiction, Carlos Molinero and senior scriptwriter Nicolás Romero, the Strasbourg-based series of six 52-minute episodes follows a high-powered couple as their once idyllic relationship turns toxic.

Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab feels Western cinema has a way to go in its depictions of his native Egypt.

Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab has called the depiction of Egypt in Wonder Woman 1984 “a disgrace”.The filmmaker, from Egypt himself, pointed to the scene in which Diana and Steve visit Cairo, and discussed his own take on ancient Egyptian mythology in the forthcoming Disney+ series.“In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history,” he told SFX Magazine.“It’s always exotic – we call it orientalism. It dehumanises us. We are always naked, we are always sexy, we are always bad, we are always over the top.”Speaking about Wonder Woman 1984 specifically, Diab went on: “You never see Cairo.

Zack Sharf Marvel’s upcoming series “Moon Knight” features four of six episodes directed by Mohamed Diab, the Egyptian screenwriter and filmmaker best known for his feature directorial debut “Cairo 678” and his 2021 Venice world premiere “Amira.” The Marvel series incorporates elements of Ancient Egyptian mythology in telling the story of Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac), a mercenary who becomes the conduit of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu, so it was of upmost importance for Diab when signing onto the series that it did right by Egyptian representation.“In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history,” Diab recently told SFX Magazine. “It’s always exotic – we call it orientalism. It dehumanizes us.

HBO Max EMEA Boss Anthony Root has set out his team’s stall to “broaden the appeal” of the streamer “beyond the die hard Euphoria fan.”

Ed Meza @edmezavarIn their new Spanish series “Días Mejores,” showrunners Adolfo Valor and Cristóbal Garrido explore the difficulties of overcoming the loss of a loved one and the challenges of being left a single parent.They were inspired by the story of an acquaintance who, after the death of her partner, sought help in a grief therapy group. Hearing about the intense dynamics of the group and the participants’ struggles to move forward, Valor and Garrido concluded that it would make for riveting TV.“Días Mejores,” which translates to “Better Days,” premieres in the Malaga Festival’s ever more important Pantalla TV sidebar.The dramedy follows Sara (“Velvet” star Marta Hazas), a mother who suddenly finds herself a widow and unable to comfort her troubled young son.

EXCLUSIVE: Call My Agent! and Marianne writer Quoc Dang Tran has struck a first-look deal with Universal International Studios, becoming the first French writer to sign such a deal with a major studio.