Movistar Plus, giant telco Telefonica’s pay TV operator, is teaming with Banijay‘s outfit DLO to produce a premium TV drama adaptation of Spanish journalist-turned-writer Julia Navarro’s bestselling novel “Dime quien soy” (Tell Me Who I Am).
Fernando Gonzalez Molina, a key member of a new generation of B.O.-friendly Spanish directors – which often cut its teeth with local primetime TV dramas – is attached to helm the series. Gonzalez Molina’s credits include titles such as “Three Meters Above the Sky,” “I Want You,” “Palm Trees in the Snow” and the upcoming “The Invisible Guardian,” all four film adaptations of successful books.
For Movistar Plus, “Dime quien soy” marks the fourth officially announced original TV series project in its ambitious TV fiction plans, which are rapidly consolidating the company’s position, alongside Sky and Vivendi, as one of the three key pay TV drivers of higher-end drama production in Western Europe.
Set in the 20th century, the historical novel follows a 30-something Internet journalist Guillermo who is tasked by his aunt to investigate the life of his great-grandmother, Amelia Garayoa, which escaped from Spain, leaving her husband and her son just before the break out of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
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With doses of adventure, emotions, intrigue and political chronicle, the novel turns on the life of Amelia Garayoa through the tumultuous years of the Second Spanish Republic to the fall of the Berlin Wall, including WWII and the Cold War.
The TV series will be produced for Movistar by vet film and TV executive Jose Manuel Lorenzo at DLO, the Spanish fiction production arm of leading international TV company Banijay. The TV drama will roll mainly on location in Spain, Argentina and several European countries, at a still undisclosed date.
“Amelia Garayoa is one of the great female characters in recent Spanish-language literature. Covering the great conflicts of the 20th century via the story of an exceptional life make ‘Dime quien soy’ one of the most ambitious trips of my career,” Gonzalez Molina said in a statement.
“So far I had resisted taking this step [of my novel’s TV adaptation], fearing I’d end up not recognising Amelia Garayoa and the rest of the characters. But after meeting Fernando Gonzalez Molina I think Amelia is in good hands,” added Julia Navarro (pictured).
The novel has sold over one million copies in Spain after 32 editions, and has been published in countries such as the U.S., Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Hungary.
Aiming to release six-to-eight TV premium series a year starting from 2017, Movistar is currently developing some 20 TV fiction projects. Already announced, Juan Cavestany and Alvaro Fernandez-Armero’s romantic comedy “Verguenza” is at the final shoot stage; both Alberto Rodriguez’s historical thriller “La peste” and Alberto and Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo’s cop thriller “La zona” are in pre-production.
