Prime Video presents its Spanish productions for 2022, ranging from ‘Red Queen’ to themes such as superheroes and time travel

Amazon Prime Video has presented some novelties for this year, focused on its own productions for Spain, and which obey an international strategy that, according to Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, is based on the fact that “the important thing is not quantity, but quality, and I think that distinguishes usLeaving behind 2020, a difficult year full of restrictions, to overcome the trance it was decided to distribute the originals from different countries around the world, which allowed the pace of premieres to not drop.

James Farrell, head of International Originals, has assured that in Spain “we have had great successes such as ‘LOL’, the Sergio Ramos series or ‘El Cid’, but we want to expand to other genres”. From Amazon they know that the Spanish product works well abroad, and Farrell recognizes that they want to take advantage of the pull of the increase in 80% of the subscriptions to the service, which has led them to have a total of 175 million.

This year, as Georgia Brown, director of content for Europe, has commented, we are going to see more than 50 new original productions, which adds up to almost one a week. A very respectable figure, which includes the platform’s first two Spanish films, which also delve into unusual terrain in Spanish cinema.

‘Tomorrow is today’

A comedy directed by the successful Nacho Velilla (‘Let the ugly die’, ‘Perdiendo el norte’) starring Carmen Machi and Javi Gutiérrez, among other heavyweights of Spanish humor. A family that goes to the beach in the summer of 91 has to deal with the escape of their teenage daughter and with a trip back in time to the future due to an electrical storm, which sends them to the year 2022. There (or here) they will deal with mobiles, virtual reality devices and satisfyers.

‘Awareness’

The title makes clear the international ambition of this second film of which no images have been seen, and directed by Daniel Benmayor (responsible for ‘Xtremo’, the exclusive action film for Netflix). We will see a story that has airs of superheroic origins, with a young man capable of projecting images into the minds of other people and who lives on the fringes of society. When his ability is discovered because his powers are unleashed, different sides will want to take advantage of him. A film with a vocation to start a franchise that, in the words of those responsible, wants to end many complexes that limit Spanish cinema.

‘Red Queen’

FINALLY I can tell you: the RED QUEEN series is a reality in @PrimeVideoEs. We have been working on development for almost three years now (and keeping the secret) 🥰 pic.twitter.com/KqDlqko7v6

– Juan Gómez-Jurado (@JuanGomezJurado) January 12, 2022

A few months ago Amazon announced that it was starting a collaboration of several projects with Juan Gómez Jurado, and the first of them, how could it be otherwise, is the adaptation of the best-selling trilogy of ‘Red Queen’. The author has commented that it is a great responsibility to get involved in this adaptation, because of the iconic character of the characters and how challenging that so many readers have made a mental image of the characters.

‘Los Farad’ (working title)

Two experts in the thriller made in Spain such as Mariano Barroso and Cuban screenwriter Alejandro Hernández are responsible for this eight-episode series that will take us to the luxurious (and tacky) eighties in Marbella, to portray a gang of international arms dealers which operated from there. The purpose of this crime thriller is to narrate the impact of the last years of the Cold War in this troubled corner of the country.

‘A private matter’

The unmistakable colorful and romantic aesthetic of Bambú productions soaks this adventure vintage headed by Aura Garrido and Jean Reno that will arrive to us before the summer. She is a wealthy daughter of a police dynasty, but in the first half of the 20th century, she did not have the opportunity to exercise her vocation. However, a suspicious death leads her to go headlong into an illegal investigation accompanied by her butler.

‘No footprints’

Another eight-episode series produced by Zeta Estudios that mixes comedy and thriller with the story of two cleaners, a Mexican and a gypsy (Carolina Yuste and Camila Sodi), who have the opportunity to work in the mansion of one of the richest families in Alicante. There they find a body, which puts them in the point of view of the police and different groups of criminals. The scriptwriter Sara Antuña has defined the series as a paella-western because “corruption is like paella, it is made in many places but nowhere like in Valencia.”