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He’s become one of Spain’s most successful auteur directors of big audience hits. Now director-writer-producer Alex de la Iglesia and producing partner, the actor-producer Carolina Bang (“The Last Circus”), have turned to wayward soccer players for their latest TV outing, HBO Max show “Headless Chickens.”

The starting point for this upcoming Spanish series is curiosity, Bang explained at an afternoon Q&a session at the Berlinale Series Market on Tuesday scheduled in the Next from Spain strand.

“Alex and I don’t like soccer very much but we have a lot of curiosity about the industry,” said Bang. “You have a lot of young people that became very rich very quickly. It destroys your head.”

Indeed, a teaser for “Headless Chickens” featured a beautiful footballer parading in a big, white fluffy coat through a nightclub with women falling at his feat. The swagger was amusing.

“It’s a...

The battle for success on the new drama series scene is the battle for talent, led by screenwriters. Following, portraits of Spanish TV scribes or creators, sometimes writing teams, who’ve made an impact, or look set to do so:

Fran Araujo

2022 was Araujo’s year. He co-wrote Berlin Competition’s “One Night, One Day” and “Rapa,” Movistar+’s biggest 2022 bow. “Offworld,” a collective series he coordinated, was a Variety’s International TV Show of the Year. An iconoclast – “if I do the same thing, I get bored,” he says – who tears up the rule book.

Aina Clotet

Best known for acting, winning at Malaga for “The Wild Ones,” but a driving force as co-creator, director and star behind “This Is Not Sweden” a €1.5 million grant recipient and groundbreaking Spain-Scandinavia-Germany co-pro, turning on a couple who think they’ve found a model lifestyle. But “there are no guarantees,” says Clotet.

This year’s Berlinale Series Market kicks off Monday as Spanish series “The Snow Girl,” a missing girl suspense thriller produced by Spain’s Atípica Films, has attracted huge heat for Netflix, punching 101.7 million hours watched in its first three weeks. Doing so, it ranked as the streamer’s No. 1 non-English show in the world over Jan. 30 – Feb. 5.

In all, Spain has more shows and movies in Netflix’s all time non-English Top 10s than any other country in the world, seven to France’s two, for example.

Spain, it could be argued, has cracked online. But its drama series industry wants to ring more options.

As scripted commissions look to have dropped from second half 2022 in not only the U.S. but also Europe and Latin America, an energetic posse of Spanish producers and stars are rolling into Berlin to present new productions. These look set to explore an...

Hugo Sanchez, the Goal and the Glory is a documentary that reviews the life and career of Hugo Sanchez, the legendary Mexican soccer player who became an idol in Spain with Atlético de Madrid and later with Real Madrid.

It is directed by Francisco Javier Padilla and features appearances by Hugo Sánchez himself, Jorge Valdano, Cristiano Ronaldo, Juan Villoro and many more.

About the Documentary

He was once a young footballer in Mexico City who would later become an international record-breaking star at Real Madrid. His story has broken barriers and is definitely inspiring; certainly a gifted legend who’s life must be brought to the big screen. Hugo Sanchez’s story must be told as the greatest ever Mexican soccer player who proved himself with a unique and unstoppable talent. Not Maradona; not Pelé. He is Hugo Sanchez.

Hugo Sánchez was, to put it in a single phrase, the...

Warner Bros Discovery left Spain out of its clampdown on European original programs for HBO Max, and has now doubled down on the country by ordering a soccer comedy there.

Production is underway in Madrid on Playing Dirty (Monos con Pistola) The seven-part series comes from Jorge Valdano Sáenz and Pablo Tébar and is based on an idea from Carolina Bang and Álex de la Iglesia, whose drama 30 Coins is one HBO Max Europe’s most high-profile originals. The series is produced by Bang and de la Iglesia’s Pokeepsie Films, which is part of Banijay Iberia.

Playing Dirty follows the life of soccer agent Alberto Martín Ruiz, otherwise known as ‘Beto,’ as he leaves the comfortable life of working at a large soccer agency to go it alone and start his own venture. Navigating between his daily delirious struggle with soccer players and his stressful family life, his only solace is his girlfriend,...