ViX, Mediapro Studio Banner Series ‘Las Pelotaris, 1926’: Women Pioneers In a Very Modern Gender Struggle

As free-to-air operators ratings tumbled last decade, Alex Pina seized the chance to make two YA-targeted shows at Spains Atresmedia, firing up their ambitions: Locked Up and Money Heist.

Now Marc Cistar a main writer on early Pina shows Pacos Menand The Boat over 2005-13 and a scribe on Locked Up has seized another industry opportunity, the strategic co-production alliance between TelevisaUnivisions ViX streaming service and The Mediapro Studio.

Rolling off the hiked ambitions of Spains TV scene after streamer success, he has createdLas Pelotaris, 1926, which The Mediapro Studio Distribution is bringing onto the market at this weeks MipTV.

A ViX Original, airing from March 10 on its platform as part of its premium offer, the show combines the craft learnt from two decades of writing Spanish prime-time series and the larger canvas, gender focus and artistic boldness of contemporary scripted.

Sold outside Latin America and the U.S. by The Mediapro Studio Distribution, which these days means a lot in terms of profile at Cannes TV markets, the series weighs in as one of the markets big Spanish-language bets and one of the only big Latin American plays at the MipTV.

Created by Cistar, and co-written with Spains Adriana Rivas (Locked Up) and Javier Naya (The Boat) and Mexicos Ana Lpez (Ana), Las Pelotaris, 1926is directed by Jess Rodrigo (Locked Up) and Jacob Santana (Pacos Men). Set between Spains Basque Country and Mexico, it kicks off with a black-and-white prologue in the Basque Country in 1915 as a voiceover explains that back then kids didnt have video games nor social media but they did have walls, and played pelota.

As a band of young girls challenge boys to use a local wall, the series explodes into color, electric guitar rock-music and a split screen cutting to 1923 as now young women are playing pelota for a living.

Thats no easy call. Las Pelotaris, 1926 pays tribute to three fictional figures who are pioneers in not only the sport but also a gender-struggle still being fought a century later. By the end of Ep. 2, one player, Mexican champion Chelo (Zuria Vega, El Refugio), pregnant, has had to feign an abortion to be allowed to contest the final of Mexicos championships. Another, Itzi (Maria de Nati, Wrong Side of the Tracks), has been blacklisted from playing by her father, a pelotari team manager, given her homosexuality.

A third, Idoia (Claudia Salas, La Rebe in Elite), the Spanish champion, looks like she could fall into the maws of the local mafia after struggling as a woman to raise the money to build a pelota court.

A tale of love, revenge and betrayal, Las Pelotaris, 1926 could well be called Las Pelotaris, 2023.Varietytalked to Cistar in the run-up to MipTV.

The story might be set in 1926, but is thoroughly modern in terms of its gender struggle, which is still being fought a century later. Could you comment?

When we began to write, we talked to women pelota players who came after the pioneers, but knew the players from the 1920s. What was so heartrending was that many of their stories, their conflicts, were totally contemporary. Weve maybe made 10% of the progress needed.

Hence the series modern style.

It was what the series called for. Maybe its a question of personal taste but I wanted to avoid the sense of distance I feel in much period drama. I wanted to bring the conflicts, which are so contemporary, as close as I could to the spectator, with the way the characters move, talk, dresstheir sun glasses, for instanceto give the sense that this happened 100 years ago, and is happening today.

Las Pelotaris, 1926 Credit: Nico de Assas The series straddles Mexico and Spain but in its depiction ofthe world of 1920s pelota, still has one attraction audiences often crave: the sense of the unknown.

This is a fiction series but inspired by a context which existed. But what caught my attention was that it hasnt really gone down in history, perhaps because these are women who were sometimes successful, had money and did things which women werent supposed to do, so Francos regime in Spain wasnt interested in highlighting them. All the better for me.

La Pelotaris, 1926 is high-end, shot totally on location. Theres a sense of production ambition.

Yes, even the interior scenes are natural interiors. I come from a school, Locked Up, in which I took part, which marked a before and after for Spanish production in terms of its worldwide recognition, even with versions of the series in other markets, and we also have other examples such as Money Heist. These series have contributed to raise production levels in Spain, and what is expected of Spanish series. One of my merits has been to choose the best, people better than me: Director Jess Rodrigo, for example, who helmed Locked Up, or art director, Fernando Gonzlez, a production designer on Locked Up and Money Heist. Im a screenwriter and its difficult to see a series which is better than what you thought it would be. That happened with Las Pelotaris, 1926.

Marc Cistare Courtesy of The Mediapro Studio Theres also a sense that series need not only higher production levels but also larger artistic ambition..

When weve been able to make series which have gained more recognition, it encourages you to be more ambitious, deeper. Spanish series are now prestigious, when 80% of their creators are the same as before. In Spain we dont value what we have until its valued from abroad.

That said, with Las Pelotaris, 1926, I didnt see out to write a social-issue or feminist series. I found a feminist series which came to me by chance and which had a tremendous dramatic potential.

One of the hallmarks of Spanish scripted since its lift off in the mid-1990s has been its genre-blending. Some of the most successful of Latin American series have practiced the same Who Killed Sara? is melodrama wrapped in a thriller, for example. Could you comment?

There are moments of melodrama, I think, but also comedy my series will always have some comedy and novela romance. Id like to think that to make a broad-audience premium series, you have to practice an alchemy of genres, and ViX understood and supported that decision. But you cant let one genre settle. When that seems to be happening, you change tone. For me its organic. Life is like that. It might be a legacy of Spanish seres which in the past had to last 70 minutes but it happens in many series. Better Call Saul, which I love, is multi-toned. Its far more contemporary than it might seem.