Copyright Variety
Serving more recognition for two of the most lauded European series of 2025, Spanish-French co-production “The Anatomy of a Moment” and Norway’s “A Better Man” scored the biggest prizes on offer at Barcelona’s Serielizados – Barcelona Series Festival, one of Spain’s most important TV events. Now in its 12th edition as a Festival, Serielizados was boosted this year by an inaugural Mind the Gap project contest and a high-powered Serielizados PRO conference attracting top international execs from Arte France, Slot Machine, BBC Studios, Beta Film, Sweden’s SVT and Finland’s YLE. Serielizados also served on Friday a high-caliber masterclass by Alan Ball, received by yelps of reverent enthusiasm from a fandom packed audience. Ball drilled down on the writers’ room dynamics of HBO’s “Six Foot Under” and “True Blood” while his inability – and this looks indicative of the way the world’s TV industry has gone – to place any project at a streaming service or broadcaster in the last five years. Serielizados other major plaudits went to Canada’s already multi-prized “Empathy” as well as Spain’s “Jakarta,” both with large fan bases at the festival. The Festival’s prizes also represent a major victory for Beta Film, which handles international distribution on both “A Better Man” and “Empathy.” Its major industry plaudit, best series at Mind the Gap went to multicultural tale “Fortune Cookie.” Serielizados has often shown impecable taste in its lineup selection and top prizes, a jury recognising Sweden’s “Pressure Point” last year, for instance, as best international series. This year few will protest its prizes. ‘The Anatomy of a Moment’ It may not be a coincidence that in these conflictive times this year’s top two Serielizados awards for best national and international series went to titles which captured the complexity of human character serving also as a lesson about how figures of supposed vastly different ideological viewpoints for the common good. Created by Spain’s Alberto Rodríguez (“The Plague,” “Tigres”), written by Rodríguez, Rafael Cobos and Fran Araújo adapting Javier Cercas’ non-fiction novel, “The Anatomy of a Moment,” for instance, chronicles how Spanish prime minister Adolfo Suárez, a former member of dictator Francisco Franco’s Falange, put through democracy in Spain, abetted by Santiago Carillo, head of Spain’s Communist Party and Manuel Gutierrez Mellado, a reformist Francoist general. “The six-part series is directed with flair, including a trenchant voiceover which clarifies the trio’s characters and actions and their consequences, as the three emerge, as Rodriguez told Variety, as figures of a “Shakesperian stature.” ‘A Better Man’ Winning Serielizados’ best series and the Audience Award, “A Better Man,” created by Thomas Seeberg Torjussen, turns on a misogynist internet troll, Tom, who is outed. Dressing as a woman to avoid further persecution, he finds a sense of self-respect as he treads a rocky road to redemption. Tackling three burning issues of the modern age – internet trolling, the cancel culture and masculinity, “A Better Man” manages to give an explanation for trolls, suggest how they can stop and wraps this is an engrossing, affecting narrative, a large achievement demanding a nuanced performance from Baasmo which takes in two physical transformations and a hard-won spiritual makeover. Serielizados’ plaudits for “A Better Man” add to a Canneseries best series and performance (Anders Baasmo, “Kon-Tiki”) wins in April, for a series which bowed on Norwegian public broadcaster NRK on Nov. 9 and will launch in Germany titled “Toxic Tom” on ZDFneo and ZDFmediathek on Nov. 18. It is produced by Maipo Film (“State of Happiness,” “Miss Julie”) and Artbox for NRK, behind so many good series in recent years, in co-production with ZDFneo. “Empathy” Serielizados also served sympathy for modern society’s supposed losers. Set in a Quebec psychiatric institute, “Empathy” captures the epic tragic emotional battles with self of the mentally disturbed, often with large humor. It is created by and stars Florence Longpré, now consolidated as one of Canada’s great TV auteurs, already having won the Audience Award at Series Mania after Longpré scored a Canneseries double win with “Audrey’s Back.” At Serielizados, she took home three awards in the International Section, securing performance (Longpré), screenplay (Longpré), and the Young Jury Award for best series. The Crave and Canal+ original scored over 10 million views on Canal+ in France within a few weeks of its premiere. “Jakarta” Set in a Spain of drab high-rise flats, desolate sports halls and anonymous mid-sized towns, “Jakarta” turns on Joserra (the ever inimitable Javier Camera, star of Almodóvar’s “Talk to Her”) dressed in a dingy track-suit and still stuck in 1992, where he played badminton at the Olympics, though he was knocked out in the first round. Now he thinks he’s discovered a badminton prodigy, Mar, 15, (Carla Quílez, “Motherhood”) who could be his ticket as a trainer to the Jakarta world championships. First of all, however, Mar has triumph in Spain. Creator Diego San José’s follow-up to Series Mania winner “Celeste,” “Jakarta,” produced by Buendía Estudios Canarias and Mediapro Canarias, confirms San José as one of Spain’s most engaging mainstream TV auteurs. ‘Fortune Cookie,’ ‘Precocity Fair’ Score at Mind the Gap Known for features “The Erection of Toribio Bardelli” (2023) and “The Cleaner” (2012), Peru’s Oscars entry, Adrián Saba won Mid the Gap’s best series, carrying a $5,500 cash prize. A low-fi sci-fi drama thriller set in Madrid’s Usera Chinatown, “Fortune Cookie” – “a show about family ties, misunderstood children and mothers on the rescue,” Saba told Variety – is produced by Kubik Films, Newen Studios Spanish banner headed by brothers Fernando, Jorge and Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo. “A comedy about two Gen Z misfits dodging eviction, chasing dreams, flipping the finger to adulthood and to the glittering city [Barcelona] that’s leaving them behind,” said producer Anna M. Bofarull, “Precarity Fair,” created by Eli Cruz and Mika Cilindro and produced by KaBoGa, won Mind the Gap’s Konga Music Award.
