Movistar+ Builds Spanish Talent Hub With ‘Offworld’
variety.comJohn Hopewell Chief International Correspondent In the first shot of “OffWorld” (“Apagon”), the camera focuses on Ernesto – balding, serious, tired, lost in thought.
It then pulls back to reveal the whole of his office, a computer-screen packed rom at an emergency intervention unit. The shot says much about the latest series from Movistar+, “Off world,” which world premieres in Official Selection at Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival and in turn speaks volumes of the ambitions and priorities of Telefonica-owned Movistar+, Southern Europe’s biggest national pay-TV/SVOD service.
Produced with Buendía Estudios, “OffWorld” presents five stories which place very different individuals in the same context, a world where there’s no electricity thanks to a massive power outage; things taken for granted like phones and the internet don’t work.
Opening close-ups in each episode underscore the protagonists’ initial identities. In Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “Denial,” workaholic Ernesto is defined by his job as deputy director of Madrid’s Civil Protection and Emergencies Unit who faces off with his superiors to impose a controlled lockdown before general grid failure. “Emergency,” directed by Raul Arévalo, turns on Eva, a hospital administrator running out of basic medicine.
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