Filmin presents the ‘Filmin Originals’: four original productions that will be released in the coming months

With only 15 years of life, Filmin has become a worldwide benchmark in the streaming platform sector. Its large and varied catalog is known to all, with a focus on classics, independent cinema and more alternative bets than what other platforms could offer. with the motto “We exist because cinema has changed our lives”, Filmin always supports careful and particular contents. As for original content, Filmin hit the bull’s-eye in 2021 with ‘Doctor Portuondo’, the original series by Carlo Padial, which received very positive reviews. Now, with the intention of continuing along this line, the platform has seen fit to present in Barcelona, ​​curated by the co-founder and editorial director Jaume Ripoll, the new original contents, framed within the term “Original Shooting”.

Before announcing the four original projects that will be released on the platform throughout the first half of 2023, Ripoll wanted to define what requirements the films, series and documentaries that it produces meet. “The Germ was working with the directors of the house, from film schools. And he was also promoting the Samantha Hudson documentary. Those people that we started this journey with are still with us. One of the approaches we have is to work on this concept of “Filmin Originals” with emerging and in-house talent. The projects we’ve done, both ‘Portuondo’ and the four we’re announcing today, have something in common: they were filmed in Barcelona or have part of their filming in Barcelona. This is not a political statement, it is a fact that we are a local company and we feel part of the audiovisual fabric of Catalonia. We want to concentrate here.”. The conditions for being a ‘Filmin Originals’ product are clear: “The key is to think that this project cannot be in a space other than Filmin. It doesn’t mean that they have to be connected to each other, but it does mean that they are projects that we feel Filmin is their home and we try to give directors and screenwriters total freedom and autonomy. This brings respect to work. We don’t interfere to make it more or less Filmin, nor to reach more audience. We don’t tell producers how the actors should dress or what dialogues they need to address.”assured Ripoll, who defined its platform as “the spark for the project to go ahead”.

“Oswald the Forger: The Series”

Oswald Aulestia is the world’s most notorious art forger, whose criminal career has seen him go to prison and be hunted down by the FBI. But all of that was left behind and right now he’s promoting ‘Osvaldo. El Falsificador’, the documentary directed by Kike Maíllo that delves into Oswald’s criminal path and methods. Now, the director, who won the Goya for best new director in 2011 for the dystopian ‘Eva’, has decided to restructure it into a mini-series with three 40-minute episodes. Maíllo told at the press conference how this project linked to the 76-year-old forger from Barcelona was born. “Oswald is an Accident, It Starts as Fiction”explained the director, “We were looking for material from those contemporary pirates, those virtual counterfeiters, scoundrels. Investigating we came to a news story that talks about an octogenarian from Barcelona in search and capture. We called him and he didn’t give us much of a ball, no he was very amused”.

Maíllo had to contact the police force to echo Oswald’s cases: “It was to feed us material that you’ve seen in movies but don’t know firsthand. There we talked to his inner circle like his ex-wife.”. The team behind the production realized there was “a lot of material” not to expand it into a serial format. This is where Filmin came in and other financial players jumped on the bandwagon, like TV3 or TVE. “The idea for the series came when we realized there were many doors that it was opening for us.eng. A feature film has a solid structure that we could disseminate”Maillo explained, “The Mediterranean spirit prevails, that idea of ​​subversion, of taking advantage of the system. Counterfeiters like Oswald use deception, intelligence, but not violence.”.

The series ‘Oswald, the counterfeiter’ will arrive simultaneously on TV3 and Filmin in January 2023.

‘Personal defence’

This original autofiction by Filmin makes a tour of festivals passing through Seville and Barcelona where it won over with its irreverent character. ‘Self-defense’, the series created by Belen Barenys, Berta Prieto and Miguel Ángel Blanca, has 10 episodes that vary in duration between 4 and 20 minutes. “It is the clearest example of when we give absolute freedom to creators”, underlined Ripoll at the press conference. Blanca, who has previously directed another documentary entitled “Magaluf Ghost Town”, confirms this statement: “The freedom Filmin gave us is incredible. They reviewed the scripts and didn’t tell us anything. We did what we wanted”. Blanca ensures that both actresses “the contradictions of the generation that today is 22, 23 or 25 years old, the centennials, crystallize”. To that he added that “treading red lines all the time was the goal of this series” and that “characters are forever reckless because recklessness is our ally”.

At first, “Self Defense” was going to have another title (“Mamarracha”), but in the end they discarded it because they considered it “a tacky”. For her part, Berta Prieto assured that the dynamics of the creation of the scripts had as their starting point their becoming friends: “We were talking about things that worried us. Obviously it is documentary because it starts from our reality but this reality is articulated”. To this adds Belén Barenys, cousin and showgirl of Rigoberta Bandini “the series has turned out to be much deeper and more thoughtful than we initially expected”.

The first five chapters of ‘Self Defense’ will be available on November 29th in Filmin, while the other five will land on the on platform December 6th.

‘Terenci: The infinite fabulation’

The figure of Terenci Moix, one of the most famous writers of the twentieth century in Spanish and Catalan, is the main protagonist of ‘Terenci: The infinite fabulation’, a documentary that will explore the career of the famous novelist. With a screenplay by Álvaro Augusto and a direction by Marta Lallana, who co-directed ‘Ojos negros’ (best film at the Seville Film Festival 2019), this new production, which is still filming, will have three episodes between 45 and 50 minutes a head. “The closest thing we have to Truman Capote in Catalonia is him”Ripoll explained.

“The footage will feature interviews from his closest circle”Lallana explained, “He’s a writer but he’s appeared a lot on television, he was very media-oriented. It was a good work of archaeology, archive”. Both the director and the screenwriter wanted to keep a style faithful to the vain tone shown by the winner of the Planeta Prize in 1986. “Terenci was flesh and mask”continued Augustus, “And that came from the movies. He discovered that life is boring and painful, and that fiction is so much better. He wanted to be Cary Grant, a Hollywood superstar”.

‘Terenci: The infinite fabulation’, produced by Mañana, Filmin and RTVE in Catalonia, will premiere on Filmin a April 2023.

selftapes

The last thing Filmin presented was ‘Selftape’, a fiction with autobiographical nuances created and performed by sisters Joana and Mireia Vilapuig, who more than a decade ago participated in the successful series ‘Pulseras rojas’. “It changed our lives”they explained, “From that moment castings and selftapes started arriving. We both found ourselves recording each other and realized how much we compared each other. Our bodies changed and other projects came out”. Both sisters reflect on what it was like to be a celebrity as teenagers and how that experience shaped their identities and their relationship to fame.

It will count on the address with Barbará Farré, best known for directing music videos for artists such as Rosalía, Bad Gyal or Amaia. “I entered this project very late”explained, “I wasn’t in the process of making it and it was a challenge for me. It had a self-fiction point that I never really knew what was real and what wasn’t in this series”.

‘Selftape’, which is co-produced by Filmax and RTVE, will have six episodes between 35 and 40 minutes. You will arrive on the platform in March and April 2023.