{"id":13374,"date":"2025-06-25T11:31:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T11:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/13374\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T11:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T11:31:09","slug":"banijays-dlo-unveils-la-caza-irati-made-with-movistar-plus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/13374\/","title":{"rendered":"Banijay’s DLO Unveils ‘La Caza.Irati,’ Made With Movistar Plus+"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOf all the highlights at last week\u2019s Spanish TV forum Conecta Fiction<\/a>, one of the biggest was a sneak peak reveal of a teaser-trailer to \u201cLa Caza. Irati,\u201d Season 4 of a franchise which is shaping up as one of Spain\u2019s biggest crime dramas.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeasons 1-3\u2019s anchor broadcaster was Spanish public-broadcaster RTVE. Set to bow later in 2025, \u201cIrati\u201d is set up at Movistar Plus+<\/a>, boasts a significantly larger budget, but repeats the potent mix of a missing persons\/murder mystery, strong characters inviting audience engagement and sharp thematic observance, here in Irati\u201d how fiction shapes reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSet in the stunning forests of Navarre, Northern Spain, \u201cLa Caza. Irati\u201d marks the latest series from Jos\u00e9 Manuel Lorenzo\u2019s DLO Producciones, part of Banijay Entertainment<\/a>, Europe\u2019s biggest scripted studio, created by renowned novelist-screenwriter Agust\u00edn Mart\u00ednez.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLorenzo and Mart\u00ednez broke through with the first flowering of Spanish scripted series from the mid-1990s, Lorenzo as a top TV exec, Mart\u00ednez penning iconic series such as teen soap \u201cAl Salir de Clase\u201d which blew U.S. series out of the ratings waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth, it could be argued, as a producer and writer have only hit full stride and an international reach in TV with the advent of streamers, notably Netflix and Movistar Plus+, and the reaction of incumbent broadcasters in Spain, essaying series which aimed to combine broad audiences with a TV edge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOver little more than the last 12 months, two DLO shows have topped Netflix non-English language charts for a combined month: high-school sexual assault drama \u201cRaising Voices\u201d\u00a0\u00a0ranked No. 1 over May 27-June 9 last year; green-fingered serial killer thriller \u201cThe Gardener\u201d followed suit over April 7-20. Meanwhile, DLO\u2019s \u201cEl Inmortal\u201d played Canneseries main competition in 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u2018La Caza,\u2019 the TV Crime Franchise to Date<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBased on Mart\u00ednez\u2019s own novel, an international best-seller, \u201cLa Caza. Monteperdido\u201d broke out to way above channel ratings on RTVE prime time, its first season bowing out with a 15% audience share, compared to RTVE\u2019s total 9% channel average for 2019. Including Seasons 2 (\u201cLa Caza. Tramontana,\u201d 2021) and 3 (\u201cLa Caza. Guadiana,\u201d 2023), \u201cLa Caza\u201d averaged averaging an 11.6% audience share and 1.89 million viewers per episode, including online catch-up viewers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tReleased on Netflix in Spain in a second widow, \u201cLa Caza\u201d shot to the top of the streamers\u2019 Spanish charts.<\/p>\n

\n\tLaunched last year on TF1, French adaptation \u201cRivi\u00e8re Perdue\u201d averaged 5.6 million viewers in primetime, becoming TF1\u2019s most successful miniseries since 2021, which is saying something given TF1\u2019s dominance of free-to-air ratings in France.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tShot in Benasque, now called Monteperdido, the biggest country town in Spain\u2019s Pyrenees in the lap of the highest Posets-Aneto massif in the range, \u201cMonteperdido\u201d turns on the sudden disappearance of two young school-girls in a snowy path from school to home. Five years later, one, Ana, appears alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLucia, the other, still can\u2019t be found. Sara Campos (Megan Muntaner, \u201c3o Coins\u201d), a buttoned Civil Guard sergeant, drives herself to physical and mental exhaustion trying to find Luc\u00eda as she battles her own inner demons, a form of schizophrenia, aided by Victor (Alain Hern\u00e1ndez), a local corporal.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTramuntana\u201d moves Sara to her native Mallorca and its highest mountain range, riven by gorges, sinkholes and caves, as she takes on the horrific murder of a local priest, reencounters her father, and finally tackles her childhood trauma.<\/p>\n

\n\tSet at Guadiana de la Frontera, a small hill of whitewashed houses nestling on the banks of Andalusia\u2019s Guadiana River separating Spain and Portugal, \u201cGuadiana\u201d sees Sara, Victor and Civil Guard lieutenant Ernesto Selva (F\u00e9lix G\u00f3mez, \u201cAlpha Males\u201d) investigate the disappearance of a woman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLa Caza 1-3\u201d is Sara\u2019s story, from her reconciliation with herself and her mental illness as she falls in love with Victor\u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s as if for a long time I\u2019ve had a thorn in the sole of my foot and you finally get used to it, and even forget it. But now I don\u2019t have it,\u201d she says to Victor, in his arms, in Season 2.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSeasons 1-3 turn on the damage adults do to children and the need for belonging. \u201cI\u2019ve never formed part of anything, not even my friends and the village,\u201d the psychopath serial killer of Season 3 admits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThemes of family, biological or found, and their need, course all three seasons. \u201cWe look like a family,\u201d one of the girls abused in Season 2 says to her friends of a drawing of them, as they steal themselves for social abuse after helping to expose a paedophilic network on the island. Engendering much of the series\u2019 emotion, Sara\u2019s journey is from solitude to form a family living in Victor\u2019s birthplace, Monteperdido.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMart\u00ednez and co-scribes \u2013 notably Luis Moya (\u201cPaco\u2019s Men,\u201d \u201cMoney Heist\u201d) and Miguel S\u00e1ez Carral (\u201cRaising Voices,\u201d \u201cThe Gardener\u201d) \u2013 create edge-of-the-seat tension, notably in Season 1, which begs multiple questions: Are both missing girls alive? Who abducted them? And will the Civil Guard investigators make it out alive?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLa Caza\u201d has its Red Wedding moments. Deaths \u2013 priest Bernat\u2019s murder opening Season 2, for instance \u2013 can be graphic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLa Caza. Irati
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Banijay<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat \u2018La Caza.Irati\u2019 Promises<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat Lorenzo and Mart\u00ednez will make of \u201cLa Caza. Irati\u201d was anybody\u2019s guess until last week\u2019s Conecta Fiction. There may now be some inkling. Season 4 is shot in the Irati Forest, said to be the second largest and best preserved mixed birch-fir woodland in Europe, as well as the nearby Sierra de Urbasa mountain plateau, its karst rock caves and potholes echoing those in \u201cTramuntana,\u201d as well as Navarre capital Pamplona.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom a promo shown at Conecta Fiction, a corpse of a woman is found hanging from a tree, upside down, in a copse outside a remote village. Sara, still part of the Civil Guard Central Operative Unit (UCO), its task force, but now a psychologist, and Selva, are drafted in as Selva gets a new boss, played by Silvia Alonso (\u201cInstinto\u201d), which grates with his freewheeling spirit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne suspect is an aged local man, a widower. As further murders follow, however, the villagers speak of a figure, known as \u201cthe Creature,\u201d lurking in a forest steeped in local mythology: One cutaway shot takes in a rune stone, hidden in the forest, bearing a mysterious inscription. Meanwhile, a group of adolescents run wild in the forest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs in much of \u201cLa Caza,\u201d the setting is spectacular, the Irati Forest caught in its full Fall splendor, as its pathways are clogged by golden-brown leaves, adding a fictional fairy tale air to woodland scenes. The trailer is splendidly shot, speaking of probably high production values.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety\u00a0chatted to Lorenzo and Mart\u00ednez about what to expect in Season 4:<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy change operator from RTVE to Movistar Plus+?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLorenzo:\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2019d made Seasons 1-3 with RTVE but RTVE budgets are very tight. I proposed co-producing \u201cLa Caza. Irati,\u201d with Movistar Plus+ which had been interested in the series for a long time, so we could make a bigger series, with RTVE contributing the same. We continued talking but RTVE asked me to wait a few more months. But by that time the series was set up, the contracts, location deals sealed. I had to shoot at a certain date and Movistar Plus+ was willing to back Season 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re working on a bigger budget?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLorenzo:\u00a0<\/strong>Significantly so. The season is on a far larger canvas with many more actors, shot entirely in Navarre and it\u2019s also the most open expansive season yet.\u00a0\u00a0Its production values are above the norm in Spain. With Movistar Plus+, I\u2019ve been able to make the best season of \u201cLa Caza\u201d to date.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy the best?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLorenzo:\u00a0<\/strong>The story is jaw-dropping. Agust\u00edn [Mart\u00ednez] knows \u201cLa Caza\u201d through-and-through. It\u2019s a world he\u2019s created from the get-go, from his first novel, which I acquired the rights to. I liked it a lot, and Agust\u00edn has a very clear idea about the characters and so on. We shot in magical places, the Irati Forest, and woods of the Sierra de Urbasa, plus Pamplona, which is spectacular. We shot everything there. Unlike the first three seasons, I didn\u2019t have to use Madrid to stand in for other locations.<\/p>\n

\n\tAgust\u00edn describes \u201cLa Caza\u201d Seasons 1-3 as Sara\u2019s journey. What is that journey in Season 4?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tLorenzo:\u00a0<\/strong>Sara still has an important role but she changes from a hands-on Civil Guard sergeant to a psychologist who helps the Civil Guard and victims of violence. I like that her character evolves, we don\u2019t want to ever repeat ourselves. What also makes me happy is the incorporation of Silvia Alonso as Megan, Selva\u2019s new boss. So Megan and Selva work with weapons in hand and Sara works with her mind, drawing on her experience with trauma. This is the most psychological series of all four.<\/p>\n

\n\tSetting Season 4 in the Irati Forest allows you to draw on a historical legacy of centuries where negative events were blamed not on the consequence of human actions but the supernatural, be it witches or mythological creatures. Was that the setting\u2019s attraction?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMart\u00ednez:\u00a0<\/strong>There were two concepts which drew us to Irati, connected to what you\u2019re saying. I was attracted to a place isolated from the rest of the world, which was its own society. Of all the villages in the series, this is the smallest.\u00a0\u00a0Also, I wanted a season closer to the world of horror, questioning throughout it the lines between reality and fiction, and how fiction can shape reality.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat fiction includes local mythology?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMart\u00ednez:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes, it\u2019s folklore, like the water spirts and the goddess Mari, part of Basque-Navarre myth. In \u201cIrati,\u201d some characters have created a fiction around their lives which has grave consequences. As you\u2019ve said, for human beings it\u2019s easier blame a fantasy creature, a demon. The whole series questions whether there\u2019s a real creature or it\u2019s invented by the villagers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat creates doubled edge suspense: What or who is the murderer. Producer Manuel Mart\u00ed (\u201cTu parte del trato\u201d) once said that suspense drive audiences to finish episodes, but characters to return to series.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMart\u00ednez:\u00a0<\/strong>For me thrillers, especially when tinged with horror, are a support structure, to construct stories which are gripping, and which gives you the chance to talk about personal and emotional conflicts which really drive the story, and not just those of the three protagonists. In \u201cIrati,\u201d we discover a world with a recent taciturn widower, his whole life destroyed, and there\u2019s a group of youths, who run wild, practically order around their parents, and are pushing boundaries on drugs, alcohol, sex and even violence.\u00a0\u00a0This world of characters is at the heart of the story. What really grabs you are the dramas you tell about each character.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith second and third streamer windows, series are seen ever more abroad. How does that effect your concept of audience and use of local detail?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMart\u00ednez:\u00a0<\/strong>I think it was Faulkner who said that the more local, the more global. When I watch a German series, I want to be told something specific about Germany. If you make something which is generic, with the ambition of it being understood in the whole world, it loses personality and identity. Beside series, I also write novels which have been translated into a large number of languages. Thrillers and mysteries travel very well but what\u2019s also highly valued is the cultural identity of the novels and the kind of\u00a0\u00a0characters we create in Spanish thrillers are completely different to those in Nordic literature, in \u201cMillennium,\u201d for example. Their conflicts are universal and comprehensible but very specific, very much of the place where the characters live. That\u2019s something I worked on a lot in \u201cLa Caza.\u201d The characters in \u201cIrati\u201d won\u2019t be the same as those in \u201cGuadiana\u201d and \u201cTramuntana.\u201d They\u2019re different because they live in a specific place with a specific culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the highlights at last week\u2019s Spanish TV forum Conecta Fiction, one of the biggest was a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[14068,1582,276,14069,2961,224,5337,14070],"class_list":{"0":"post-13374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-banijay-entertainment","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-conecta-fiction","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-movistar-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114743783181441784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}