Blockbuster drama productions, series for younger viewers and the best in entertainment and major documentaries make up the Corporation’s portfolio for MIPTV in Cannes. Among RTVE’s outstanding productions this year are the prime-time series ‘Peace Force’ and ‘Drought’, the second season of ‘HIT’, the TV Movies ‘A World for Julius’ and ‘Laura and the Mystery of the Unexpected Murderer’, and the Playz teen drama series ‘Yrreal’.
‘Peace Force’ is RTVE’s latest co-production with Alea Media. This drama series follows Sergeant Paula Elgueta, on a UN Peacekeeping Mission in Africa. After receiving a strange call from her boyfriend, Staff Sergeant Hugo Reyes, she later gets the news that he’s committed suicide. But Paula knows that this can’t be true - he’s been murdered. Defying everyone around her, she resolves to find the truth about his death.
‘Drought’ is the first co-production between RTVE and the Portuguese public broadcasting service, RTP. With more than 2 million views on the RTVE Play platform and starring Elena Rivera, Rodolfo Sancho, Miryam Gallego, and Miguel Ángel Muñoz, this thriller offers viewers a heady cocktail of love, ambition, betrayal, and greed, topped off with an unsolved crime. A severe drought uncovers the previously submerged village of Campomediano, located on the Spanish-Portuguese border. Then human remains are found in one of the ruined houses. Everything points to it being a crime that’s lain hidden for many years. Police Inspector Daniela Yanes is put on the case.
The series ‘HIT’, a prize-winner at the World Media Festival in Hamburg and finalist at the New York Television Festival, draws us into the serious and complex world of education, as seen through the eyes of a character equally likely to inflame love or hate. Teacher Hugo Ibarra Toledo is brilliant, provocative, unconventional, egocentric, and a self-confessed loser. When the head of a school that has been badly hit by vandalism asks for his help, he’s ready to turn the education system on its head and shake it to the core. According to figures from Kantar Media, this was the top show in its time slot for teens and young adults (aged 13 to 24 years) - the same age range as the series’ main characters - and is also rated highly among the 25 to 44 age group, which includes their parents.
The TV Movie ‘A World for Julius’ (‘A World for Julius’) centers on an upper-class boy in Lima during the 1950s and 60s. He lives in a palace with his aristocratic family, waited on by a vast staff of servants. As the years pass, he gradually loses his innocence as he discovers - but never understands - an adult world full of inequality and injustice. In ‘Laura and the Mystery of the Unexpected Murderer’, the lead character’s intuition and uncanny ability to sniff out leads help her solve every case, while humor is never far away. This mystery-packed 90-minute special about the murder of a criminologist academic and former police adviser is guaranteed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats.
Teen shows and documentaries
Teen drama series ‘Yrreal’, an action thriller blending live-action and 2D animation and starring Angy Fernandez and Veky Velilla, will also be screened in Cannes. Winner of a Connecta Ficción award, the series was also given a special mention by the jury at the Luchon Television Festival (France). This program is available on the RTVE platform Playz, winner of the 2021 Ondas award.
RTVE’s portfolio also includes other new productions with an international focus, such as ‘Columbus’s DNA: his True Origin’, an exclusive documentary following some of the most important historical research of all time: the study of Christopher Columbus's DNA, in search of his real origin.
International channels and OTT RTVE Play+
RTVE also offers a wide range of international online streaming channels, with increasing numbers of subscribers all around the world: TVE 24 Horas; the drama channel STAR HD, which is expanding its coverage in Europe and is already available in France and Switzerland; and Clan, watched by millions of households in 17 countries in the Americas, including the USA. In addition, RTVE offers exclusive access to the RTVE Play + on-demand video platform, with over 10,000 hours of subscription content available throughout the Americas.