Why talk about TV at Spain at the Spanish-world’s biggest film festival? One reason: in 2024, San Sebastián hosted the world premieres of Movistar Plus+ Original Series “Querer” and “Celeste,” which both went on to win the two biggest prizes at 2025’s Series Mania, Europe’s most important TV festival.
Also, Spanish pay-TV/SVOD operator Movistar Plus+ and Netflix, both out in force at this year’s San Sebastián, are the two companies that have moved most the needle in Spanish film production over the last five years.
Like other big TV companies – think Fremantle – Movistar Plus+ and Netflix are both plowing into movie production. The results and the companies will generate many of the highest-profile movies at this year’s festival and some of its main talking points.
Movistar Plus’ announced its first slate of movie originals in Jan. 2024, to early spectacular results. Playing Cannes main competition, Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât” gleaned rave reviews, was acquired for North America by Neon, won Cannes’ Jury Prize and, handled by The Match Factory, has now sold in all major markets .
In Spain, “Sirât” was released June 6 by BTeam Pictures and had grossed a robust €2.7 million ($3.2 million) by Sept. 7. The Movistar Plus+ upcoming production slate includes next films from Pedro Almodóvar (“Bitter Christmas”), Rodrigo Sorogoyen (“The Beloved,” starring Javier Bardem) and Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo (“La Bola Negra,” with Penelope Cruz).
Two more Movistar Plus+ titles – Alberto Rodríguez’s “Los Tigres” and Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s “Sundays” – account for half of San Sebastian’s four Spanish main competition Golden Shell contenders.
“We’ve created a hybrid model: We’re a broadcaster but support theatrical runs and co-produce with independent producers, allowing normally complicated access to finance,” says Guillermo Farré, Movistar Plus+ head of original films and Spanish cinema.
A Netflix Spain movie production, J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow” still ranks as Netflix’s third biggest non-English-language global hit film ever, with 98.5 million views. Having commissioned one-to-two Spanish movies each half year from the second half of 2022 to 2024, Netflix Spain ordered five movies in first half 2025, Ampere Analysis estimates. “There’s a marked shift towards movies in [early] 2025 compared to first run TV shows,” comments Ampere’s Guy Bisson. In Latin America, movie orders have surged from four in late 2023, when operators in general pulled back due to Hollywood strike action, to eight in the second half of 2024 and six in the first six months of 2025.
That shows at San Sebastián where Netflix movies has secured their best festival real estate ever. The Basque festival opens with Argentine Netflix movie “27 Nights,” directed by Daniel Hendler (“A Loose End”). Another Netflix feature, “Limpia,” from Chile’s Dominga Sotomayor (“Too Late to Die Young”), bows San Sebastian’s Latinos Horizontes, one of the festival’s most significant sidebars. Buzzy Spanish Netflix title “She Walks in Darkness” plays out of competition.
The Festival’s major talking point looks set to turn on the future of Movistar Plus+, under new top management. Driven by then original fiction head Domingo Corral, the Telefonica-owned pay TV/SVOD player emerged from 2017 as a prominent content investor, producing 10-11 series a year of often huge artistic ambition.
Now under new CEO Daniel Domenjó, Movistar Plus+ is battling to build on and expand beyond what Corral, former CEO Cristina Burzako, and ex-President Sergio Oslé have created.
“Movistar Plus+ has its own marked, consolidated brand of prestige premium product. Still betting on this legacy, which has been built so well in the past, we aim to grow in the future broadening Movistar Plus+’s focus,” Domenjó tells Variety.
Moves in that direction have already been made. “Sundays” is classic arthouse, a deep dive into complex contemporary ethics. “Los Tigres,” in contrast, is Rodríguez’s biggest movie to date, “a very personal film about the precariousness of a certain working class in Europe, its lack of prospects, and at the same time a highly entertaining thriller, set against the narco trade, a very open film,” says Farré.
“We need subscribers, viewers and to make more noise, opening up to formats and genres like entertainment, where we aren’t at the moment,” says Domenjó. Entertainment could be “above all,” docu reality shows, a “fiction/doc hybrid, say, where we can remain faithful to our brand but innovate.”
Movistar Plus+ viewers skew older adult, says Jorge Pezzi, Movistar Plus director of fiction and alliances, citing as an early example of a play for younger audiences “Se tiene que morir mucha gente,” adapting a novel of from Victoria Martín, one of Spain’s most prominent YouTube and podcast comedians.
Movistar Plus+ can play off several market tailwinds. It is still growing. Movistar Plus+, a streamed version of its basic pay TV tier priced at just €9.99 ($11) has helped the company post net additions in the double-digit thousands each quarter since second quarter 2024, observes Maria Rua Aguete at Omdia. “Movistar’s growth is especially notable considering the broader trend of pay TV decline across Europe,” she adds.
It also enjoys a fruitful title-by-title alliance with Arte France. Their latest co-production, “Anatomy of a Moment,” is an incisive, mordant miniseries portrait of the three figures who stood up against Spain’s attempted military coup d’etat in 1981. Also directed by Alberto Rodríguez, it is shaping up as one of the biggest buzz titles at this year’s San Sebastián.
Movistar Plus+ can also play off a far more fluid international TV business which allows for split rights and windowing deals, permitting big plays but controlled investment. “Production with Netflix or Amazon Prime Video? Why not? We’ve already talked with them and they’re very, very receptive,” says Domenjó, also pointing out that Movistar Plus+ has already sold its original “Muertos” Season 3 to stream on Netflix.