Marking its first company step in worldwide growth outdoors Spain, Madrid-based Zeta Studios, producer of “Elite” and “García!” has named Marcelo Tamburri, certainly one of Latin America’s preeminent TV execs, to the newly-created place of director of worldwide content material.
Spun off from the sale of publishing home Grupo Zeta to Prensa Ibérica in 2019, and rebranded from Zeta Audiovisual, in the case of particular person titles., Zeta Studios boasts one of many largest worldwide reaches of any manufacturing home in Spain.
The appointment comes as Netflix preps the bow of “Elite” Season 7 on Oct. 20, making “Elite” one of many longest-running of streamer sequence and some of the profitable from outdoors the U.S., its Seasons 3 and 4 rating in Netflix’s Prime 10 of most-viewed non-English sequence ever on the OTT service with 334.8 million and 302.2 million hours considered.
“Love at First Kiss,” a romcom film, ranked as No. 1 on Netflix international charts within the non-English movie class in March.
Tamburri’s appointment marks a strategic transfer which takes Zeta’s growth to a different stage, nonetheless. Nicely-known and far favored, Tamburri will proceed to be primarily based in Mexico Metropolis, the place he served from Oct. 2020 by way of April this yr as VP, scripted content material growth at WarnerMedia Latin America and at last Warner Bros. Discovery Latin America.
“We’d like to ascertain a foothold in Mexico and the remainder of Latin America however pondering internationally, and doing it in probably the most natural means attainable,” Zeta Studios president Antonio Asensio Mosbah advised Selection.
“Marcelo has all of the expertise on the earth, he is aware of the market and this is a vital added asset, and he is aware of the way to make sequence that are favored in Mexico and in the entire Latin America area,” he added.
“I’m moved to have the ability to help Antonio Asensio and collaborate with the workforce of Zeta Studios, to drive extra its worldwide growth and, above all, achieve this with high quality and originality, caring for sequence and options which we’ll produce outdoors Spain,” Tamburri added.
Why Mexico….
Spain and Mexico are the 2 largest TV manufacturing powerhouses within the Spanish-speaking world. In addition they share the identical language and, on a lot of their largest hits – assume “Cash Heist,” “Elite,” “Who Killed Sara?” – success in recasting melodrama in a genre-bending combine with a contemporary edge and excessive manufacturing values.
A big a part of Asensio’s household is in Mexico – he’s half-Mexican, married to a Mexican, has some enterprise pursuits within the nation, and has launched efficiently Mexican performers into main titles, similar to Danna Paola in “Elite” and Erick Elias in “Días mejores,” he commented to Selection.
That mentioned, “Marcelo is aware of the way to make TV which might discover a neater place in Mexico, he has expertise with melodrama and is aware of the way to deal with it effectively,” he added.
Zeta Studios’ Slate: Breadth and Platform Play
Since 2019, in Spain Zeta Studios has centered on constructing its slate throughout a broad gamut of titles, from the mass viewers attraction of “Elite” to titles such because the soon-to-bow “Te estoy amando locamente,” a LGBTQ interval function from Alejandro Marín which have extra of an indie attraction.
Collection, such because the upcoming “Picadero” and “The Chauffeur’s Son” have been chosen for the cream of Europe’s venture competitions – “Picadero” for the 2021 Collection Mania Discussion board Co-Professional Pitching Classes, “The Chauffeur’s Son” for this yr’s Berlinale Co-Professional Collection showcase.
In addition they steadiness a style gristle with distinctive parts.
“Picadero” weighs in as a Barcelona excessive society crime investigation drama with an LGBT and libertine sexual edge; Primarily based on true occasions, “The Chauffeur’s Son” is billed as a “journalism, blackmail and corruption thriller,” charting how probably the most fashionable a part of Spina rising from Franco’s dictatorship was ruled at occasions by a mix of horse buying and selling, coercion and illicit good points.
The widespread denominator of Zeta Studios titles is that they’ve been largely made for or with streaming providers: For Netflix, Prime Video (motion comedy “Sin huellas”), Prime Video and Paramount+ in Latin America (the grief remedy group-set drama “Días mejores”), HBO Max (the big-scale action-adventure “¡García!”), Movistar Plus+ (late-night radio dramedy “Reyes de la Noche”) and Atresplayer (the upcoming teen drama “Crimson Flags”).
What Zeta Studios and Tamburri Deliver to the Desk
“Mexico has a extremely aggressive TV market which is aware of the way to do its work very effectively,” mentioned Asensio. “Although there are exceptions, the lion’s share of sequence are for free-to-air audiences. As a overseas firm, we’ll attempt to carry titles which have distinctive parts.”
Zeta Studios will even be open to co-production in lots of circumstances. “Mexico has a bigger custom of co-production than Spain,” Asensio mentioned.
Tamburri can carry to the desk his involvement at a excessive government stage of predominant paradigm shifts within the vertiginous current evolution of Latin America’s higher-end TV scene.
Working for Turner for 16 years primarily based out of Argentina, the place the corporate constructed as primarily a high U.S. cable TV firm in Latin America, distributing U.S. content material, Tamburri went on to assist energy up a primary wave of premium unique sequence in Argentina, two of which, “The Cockfighter” and “La Fragilidad de los Cuerpos,” each made in co-production, offered Conecta Fiction the 2 galas of its first version in Santiago de Compostela in 2017.
Tamburri was head-hunted by Tomás Yankelevich in 2018 to maneuver to Mexico and head up Turner Latin America growth in all Latin America, as TLA aimed to ramp up manufacturing of unique sequence to about 12-15 in two years time for TNT and House.
Now that Latin America’s broadcast sector appears to have shifted gears to a different tenor, Tamburri can carry to Zeta Studios his insider-knowledge of platform wants in Mexico, far-ranging inventive expertise relationships and enthusiasm for manufacturing partnerships.
“I hope to contribute to Antonio and the Zeta workforce, my expertise within the technology of initiatives, taking into account the imaginative and prescient, necessity and parameters of the platforms. The enterprise and trade has turned to a deeper evaluation of the effectiveness of enterprise,” Tamburri advised Selection.
“The nice problem is to supply one thing totally different and a big goal is collaboration, similar to in co-production which imply sharing danger, and never solely working with our personal productions however seeing the potential for creating different productions and collaborations with different manufacturing homes,” he added.
