Mexico’s Monica Lozano, Argentina’s Paola Suarez Develop ‘Zafiros en la Piel’(EXCLUSIVE)
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Two of Latin America’s most energetic producers, Mexico’s Mónica Lozano and Argentina’s Paolo Suárez, are teaming to adapt Argentine bestseller “Záfiros en la Piel,” aiming to shoot in Mexico, in further signs of a fast-building pan-Latin American TV production scene.
Also president of México’s producers assn., Lozano’s credits include milestone Mexican movies such as Academy Award winner Alejandro González Iñárritu’s feature debut “Amores Perros,” with Gael García Bernal, and Eugenio Dérbez’s “Instructions Not Include,. the highest-grossing Spanish-language ever in the U.S. ”
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Based out of Argentina and now México, Suárez’s Jaque Content produced breakout hit series, “The Cleaning Lady,” subject of an ongoing U.S. remake whose pilot is co-produced by Warner Bros. TV and Fox Entertainment, as well as a Mexican remake which is a banner Spanish-language title on Turner Latin America’s 2020 original series slate.
The option on “Záfiros” was negotiated by Suárez and Sydney Borjas at Barcelona-based Scenic Rights, which represents adaptation rights to many of the greatest titles in Latin American literature.
Initial development is set up at Lozano’s Mexico City-based Alebrije Producciones and Suárez’s Jaque Content in Mexico.
Imagined as a 10-part series, “Záfiros en la Piel” will feature disparate stories in different countries and time periods dealing with love in its multiple manifestations.
“Erotic, altruistic, maternal, fraternal, passing, obsessive, passionate, sacrificed, all-consuming, the variations are as many as the characters who make up these delicious stories,” a synopsis runs, saying that the series will feature women who are “convinced of their ideals,” ready to do anything in the name of love, from rekindling love to flying in the face of social convention.
“I got to know this story via Jaque Content and was moved when reading Viviana Ribero’s book. It’s a great story to adapt for the screen,” Lozano said.
“For Alebrije Producciones, it’s a pleasure to co-produce with Jacque Content which is establishing itself in Mexico and we know its track record in Argentina,” she added, saying that she felt the alliance could “grow this project to its potential and convert it into a story of global reach.”
“The series works a universal theme – love – an ideal questioned now by social dictates but still the most powerful of all sentiments and which impacts us all,” said Suárez.
“‘Záfiros en la Piel’ also has complex characters, and different levels unveiled to viewers in each episode, plus a compelling central story which creates suspense from one episode to the next, she added.
“Záfiros en la Piel” was the subject of the first #LibroVivo, a partnership between Google and Planeta, the biggest book publisher in the Spanish-speaking world, which allowed followers to track and comment on Ribero’s creative process as she wrote the first chapter of the novel.
Written by Irene Gissara and Lucas Combina with the latter directing, the original “The Cleaning Lady” has been sold to the U.S., U.K., Belgium, Brazil, India, Poland and Germany.
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