Top Spanish film talent including Pedro Almodóvar, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz have signed a public letter of support for
Top Spanish film talent including Pedro Almodóvar, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz have signed a public letter of support for Domingo Corral, following his surprise departure as head of content at Movistar Plus+ last week.
Corral’s departure shortly before Cannes has baffled the Spanish industry. A total of 144 Spanish professionals have signed the letter of support.
They all thank Corral for his work at Movistar Plus+, the pay-TV and SVoD service of Spanish telco giant Telefonica Group, a key player in the Spanish industry.
Corral led the streamer’s move into original productions, first in series and more recently in features, working with leading Spanish production companies.
Following Corral’s departure, Jorge Pezzi, the former managing director at Boomerang TV (part of the Mediawan group), is now in charge of fiction. Hugo Tomás, former executive producer at ITV Studios Iberia, is in charge of non-fiction and entertainment
Corral’s departure comes after changes in management at the telecommunications group Telefónica, with Marc Murtra becoming the recent president in January and Daniel Domenjó becoming Movistar Plus+ CEO in March.
Upcoming Movistar Plus+ projects include Sirat, directed by Oliver Laxe, which is in competition in Cannes. The film is produced by Films Da Ermida, Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar’s El Deseo and Uri Films alongside Movistar Plus+ in Spain and with 4A4 Productions in France.
The move by Movistar Plus+ to enhance investment and be actively involved in feature film production was announced last year.
As well as Sirat, its slate includes the thriller Los Tigres, by Alberto Rodríguez, currently in post-production; La Bola Negra (The Black Ball) by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (a.k.a. filmmaking duo Los Javis), inspired by an unfinished play by Federico García Lorca; and El Ser Querido, starring Javier Bardem and directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, this year’s president of the Cannes Critics’ Week Jury.
Original series such as Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s Querer, Sorogoyen’s Riot Police and Los Javis’ La Mesías, have been some of the platform’s biggest critical successes.
The support statement signed by the Spanish professionals thanks Corral and his team for his decade-long work as head of content at M+, “defending an idea, a project based on the respect for the creative teams, a close relationship with independent producers and on listening to all the partners they worked with. All this without losing sight of entertainment”.
The list of professionals acknowledging Corral’s work also includes filmmakers Alejandro Amenábar, Oliver Laxe, The Javis, Alberto Rodríguez, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa and Isaki Lacuesta; producers Agustín Almodóvar and Esther García from El Deseo; the president of the Spanish Film Academy Fernando Méndez-Leite; and actors Leonardo Sbaraglia, Carmen Machi, Javier Cámara and Eduard Fernández, among others.
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