Movistar Plus unveiled its most ambitious production slate to date at the San Sebastián Film Festival, committing to a high-volume output of one Spanish film per week and two national series per month. According to Variety, the aggressive domestic strategy arrives as global streaming competitors like Netflix and Amazon scale back their European original investments.
Leadership Shift and Production Strategy at San Sebastián
The programming slate marks the first major rollout under new Movistar Plus CEO Alfonso Gómez Palacio and Juan Andrés García Ropero, who took over as director of contents in May, according to Variety. At the festival presentation, Gómez Palacio outlined an ambition to anchor the platform’s value in localized vision. “We want Movistar Plus to be the most relevant platform for our clients and Spain’s audiovisual industry,” Gómez Palacio said, as reported by Variety. García Ropero added that the strategy focuses on treating established filmmakers as core intellectual property rather than relying solely on high-concept hooks.
High-Profile Creators Anchor the New Slate
The domestic push features prominent Spanish directors and actors across multiple genres:
- Fernando León de Aranoa: The director of The Good Boss is creating, writing, and directing La Náufraga, an exclusive Movistar Plus series produced alongside Jaume Roures and Patricia de Muns. It stars Belén Cuesta, according to Variety.
- J.A. Bayona: Following the survival drama Society of the Snow, Bayona is attached as executive producer to two new non-fiction projects, including a documentary revisiting the Andes survival story, as reported by Variety.
- Daniel Monzón: The director of Cell 211 will helm the original film 250 Metros. Produced with Edmon Roch’s Ikiru Films and Basoilarraren, the movie stars Luis Tosar and features a script by Jorge Guerricaechevarría, according to Variety.
- Los Moriarti: The directing collective behind The Endless Trench is developing a fiction project styled after the true-crime work of journalist Carles Porta. The cast includes Anna Castillo, Pol López, and Eduard Fernández, per Variety.
- Paco León: The co-creator of Arde Madrid has a new project currently in development with the platform, according to Variety.
- Sandra Romero: Following her work on the 2026 series Many People Need to Die, Romero is directing the feature film Una visita familiar, produced by Mammut, Icónica Producciones, and Bteam Prods, as reported by Variety.
- Cristóbal Garrido and Adolfo Valor: The creators are developing a comedy set against the backdrop of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, starring David Verdaguer and Paula Malia, according to Variety.
Industrial Pacing Amid Global Streaming Retrenchment
The new slate builds on a July announcement in which Movistar Plus committed to doubling its annual number of original series from eight to sixteen. By pairing that television target with a weekly feature film release schedule, the Telefónica-owned premium service is positioning itself as a primary financial benefactor for Spanish cinematic talent. Over the past decade, local creators largely exported major projects through California-based streamers like Netflix, which popularized global hits such as Money Heist. Movistar Plus is now attempting to reverse that pipeline by keeping authors anchored domestically, funding original productions like Oliver Laxe’s Cannes-recognized Sirāt, La Bola Negra, and The Beloved.
