Netflix recently hosted a celebration event to inaugurate the expansion of its production hub in Madrid, Tres Cantos and highlight their commitment to the creative community in Spain. The day featured creators and producers sharing their experiences working at Netflix’s first production facility in Europe that houses 10 stages and a state of the art post production facility.
Kicking off the day were tours of the set of Élite led by creator Carlos Montero, KAOS from executive producer Chris Fry, and The Society of the Snow from director J.A. Bayona and producers Belén Atienza,Sandra Hermida, and Pau Costa, Alain Bainee, Laura Pedro and Félix Bergés.
Following the tours, guests were welcomed by María Ferreras, Netflix’s global partnerships and business development head and director of series for Spain and Portugal Verónica Fernández and VP production Europe M-K Kennedy. Secretary of state for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure María González Veracruz also addressed the crowd about the state of the audiovisual industry in Spain.
Since opening in 2019, Tres Cantos has doubled its stage capacity and now features ten sets and a multi-purpose space of more than 22,000 m2 that includes production offices, makeup, hair and wardrobe areas, and beyond. To offer creators a seamless experience once filming has wrapped, in 2022 year Netflix opened post production facilities next to the stages which offer the highest quality technology to creators. Tres Cantos also features the first remote editing system in Spain (with 30 new rooms that will make it easier for technical professionals to work on projects from anywhere in Spain or Europe) or the first post production lab in the Netflix cloud globally.
The stages have housed some of Netflix’s biggest productions from Spain including Élite, La noche más larga, Valeria, Fuimos canciones or Criminal, and the global phenomenon La casa de papel. Beyond the walls of Tres Cantos, Netflix’s has productions across Spain.
The expansion at Tres Cantos will enable Netflix to bring original stories ‘made in Spain’ to the world, with upcoming highlights in 2023 including films such as Hermana Muerte, Eres tú, Fenómenas, A través del mar; or TV shows such as El silencio, El cuerpo en llamas, Berlín, Un cuento perfecto; the new seasons of Sky Rojo, Valeria or Élite; or nonfiction titles such as the new season of Soy Georgina.
To conclude the day, Álex Pina, Esther Martinez Lobato, Hermanos Pastor, Laura Sarmiento, Núria Valls, and Oriol Paulo took the stage for a panel on ‘New Stories, Made in Spain’ to discuss their experiences working at Tres Cantos and more broadly about telling stories in Spain that are watched by the world on Netflix.
Highlights from the conversation include:
El Inocente and Los renglones torcidos de Dios director and creator Oriol Paulo announced that he is working on a new project for Netflix that will be a thriller, a genre that, he says, “is a wonderful excuse to explain the human condition and challenging the spectator.” Paulo also wanted to emphasize the importance of all his collaborations with the company being based on a commitment “for creative freedom and respect for the figure of the creator.”
Álex Pina and Esther Martínez Lobato unveiled the first drafts for the atomic bunker in which their new series will take place. They said, “During the pandemic, we were inspired by the proliferation of bunkers around the world. We imagined a subway urbanization where the focus, instead of the apocalypse, was on those who lived in the space. The big question this project addresses is: does life still go on even while the world is ending.”
Esther added that in relation to the spin-off of La Casa de Papel that they are currently producing, “Developing Berlin is a responsibility. Above all, because it starts from a connection that already exists with the viewers and, as creators, we want to continue deepening this emotion.”
Intimidad and El cuerpo en llamas creator Laura Sarmiento added, “Netflix is a huge amplifier that takes our stories and moral and personal concerns as storytellers to more than 190 countries. As creators, we drive models and debates, and that is an absolute privilege.”
Élite, El desorden que dejas and Todas las veces que nos enamoramos creator Carlos Montero expressed, “Creators always dream big, that’s why when we create a series we want to reach the world. Achieving this before was very difficult, but when you work for a company like Netflix, which reaches five continents, you have a wonderful vehicle.”
A través del mar and A través de mi ventana producer Núria Valls spoke about the connections with the fans of this phenomenon saying, “We’ve felt accompanied by the fans in every step of this project. They’ve been loving and caring while we witnessed how the phenomenon was growing in Spain and how the book and the book feed back to each other.”
Bird Box spinoff directors Àlex and David Pastor concluded with how their new film will be, “A great global story, in which every part of the world will add to the storytelling. Thanks to Netflix, the possibilities of telling this kind of stories is easier.” In addition, speaking about the production hub in Tres Cantos, the Pastor brothers remarked that the hub allows them to “tell stories big and ambitious, in which the only limit is the desires of the own creator.”
