What Madrid Market Iberseries & Platino Industria Says About the TV Business
Expanded to four full days, Madrid’s Iberseries & Platino Industria, a joint venture of the Fundación Secuoya and EGEDA, Spain’s large rights collection society, opens its doors for its third edition on Tuesday Oct. 3, running all week at Madrid’s Matadero.
I & IP is a market, thanks to its Iberscreenings showcase, and ever more a co-pro forum as well as a massive financing emporium with 149 (sic) projects being pitched behind closed doors at Platforms, Producers Pitch sessions.
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The event takes place post-peak TV, however, with a new sense of realism and calculation flooding the world’s TV and film industries. A now robust conference strand looks set to debate key issues and market trends.
Tow weeks out from the event, Variety sat down with Iberseries director Samuel Castro of the Grupo Secuoya and Adriana Castillo, who heads up EGEDA’s office in Mexico, to check out their take on the major changes coursing through international markets, and the evolution of Iberseries & Platino Industria. Some conversation highlights:
Attendance
How are the numbers tracking?
Adriana Castillo: It’s still quite early, but we’re at 1,200, with delegates from 35 countries. Participants are up from outside Spain, and include real players in film and TV which now think of Iberseries & Platino Industria as a must-attend event on the market calendar which generates business.
Do you have any sense of final figures?
Samuel Castro: We’re currently 32% up year-on-year for this time out. Last year we hit 2,000. We expect to match or better that in 2023. A lot of people sign up on the last week before, or during the event, and that’s with accreditation going up, from €170 [$180] to €300 [$318]. What we’re also looking for is high-profile exec attendance, and if you look at the program it shows that we’ve achieved it.
Castillo: And more streamers, new players….
Castro: We’ve made a big effort to attract buyers from in and outside Spain, as well as sellers.
Castillo: Currently, the five counties with the biggest presence is Spain, Mexico, Argentina, U.S., whose numbers have gone up significantly, and Colombia, in that order.
Castro: Outside the U.S., we have participants from France, Turkey, U.K., Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia, for example. As last year, we will also have a delegation from Japan, which wants to contact We’re not just Spain and Latin America. We’re increasingly global.
Evolving Business Models
Iberseries & Platino Industria takes place when distribution models are in flux. One factor is a certain contention on the part of streamers in Spanish-speaking Latin America, which means more projects are opting for co-production and sale on the open market, which could be one reason to come to Iberseries & Platino Industria….
Castillo: What we’ve seen at both the Platform/Producers Industry Pitch and Co-Production and Financing Forum, that Latin America is bringing ever more projects that are pan-regional co-production or are bilateral or trilateral titles with partners in Europe. In Iberseries, our screenings section, one interesting key is that we’re now getting titles which might have sold to Latin America but are aiming for sales in Europe and the U.S.
Castro: I think our event and others like it are benefitting from windowing. In a Tuesday keynote, Pablo Iacoviello, will talk about this, in the case of Amazon Studios and Prime Video. We’re living a paradigm shift. Titles are no longer silo-ed with one platform, but are beginning to be seen elsewhere. Disney is one example.
We’re screening in Second Window, Simon West’s “Boundless,” bought by Amazon Prime Video for multiple major territories, but with RTVE and ZDF Studios sharing remaining sales rights,
Production Trends
Can you see any through lines between individual titles in Iberscreenings?
Castillo: Polemical figures, such as João de Deus in Brazil’s “Godless João,” or corruption cases, such as in the soccer scandals in “Azul Oscuro, Azul Celeste.” Also, the production levels with which series are getting made, are extremely high, whether in cinematography or technical effects. As for the platforms, when we talked with them for the Pitch sessions, they said they didn’t want violence, poverty, corruption but other themes which were more feel-good.
Castro: Our colleague Eduardo Campoy at Secuoya Studios commented that streamers are looking for contents which attract new audiences, for example immigration from Latin America to Spain or the U.S. or sustainability. More human, committed stories which, just a few years back, wouldn’t have been thought so entertaining. But both documentaries and fiction are ever more nearing to pure cinematography. One of our panels, with Ron Leshem and “Elite” co-creator Carlos Montero talks about how to engage Generation Z audiences
Castillo: Platforms are looking for stories which focus on actions, events or characters which help to construct different, better realities.
Castro: Broadcasters as well. If you look at RTVE, it will screen “Los pacientes del Dr. García” and “Operación Barrio Ingles,” which are both love stories set against WWII. They’re trying to recuperate the essence of espionage fiction, not so much as action pieces so much as their human dramas, which is what really hooks audiences. There’s a large sense of commitment. These aren’t just entertainment.
Expansion Beyond the October Event
Many markets begin with an annual hometown event but then expand to select the events round the year. Is this the ambition of Iberseries & Platino Industria?
Castro: From last year, we hold a conference at Ventana Sur, which we will repeat in 2023. We will launch a series of joint initiatives at the Berlinale Series Market. As you can see, its logo already features on our website.
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