Rodrigo Sorogoyen, director of ‘The Beasts,’ the Best Foreign Film winner at France’s 2023 Cesar Awards, has gone into production on a new series, “The New Year’s Eves.”
Following on Sorogoyen’s acclaimed “Riot Police,” and his episode in “Offworld,” chosen by PvNew as one the best international series of 2022, “The Beasts” is produced by Movistar Plus+, the biggest Spanish pay TV/OTT operator, in collaboration with Madrid-based independent production house Caballo Films (“Riot Police,” “The Route”), co-founded by Sorogoyen.
Movistar Plus+ International will handle distribution outside Spain. Going into production on Oct. 2, the series will shoot in over the next few weeks in Madrid, Lyon (France) and Berlin (Germany).
“The New Year’s Eves” is created by Sara Cano (“Debts”), Paula Fabra, a writer on hit Prime Video series “A Private Affair,” the most-watched non-English-language series on Prime Video between July 2022 and June 2023 and Sorogoyen himself. Sorogoyen will executive produce, and direct four of the series’ 10 episodes. Further episodes are helmed by Sandra Romero and David Martín de los Santos, who broke out with the 2021 Goya-nominated movie, “Life Was That.”
Sorogoyen has tackled love before, most notably in his second feature, 2013’s “Stockholm,” in which a guy picks up a emotionally fragile girl at a nightclub, selling her a lot of romantic schtick, only the morning after to reject her coldly. The consequences are devastating.
In “The New Year’s Eves,” the couple is dufferent, supposedly maturer and the time period longer but their romantic notions chafe against reality.
Set on the same day every year for a decade, New Year’s Eve, the series stars Iria del Río (“El Inmortal,” “El increíble finde menguante,” “Riot Police”) and Francesco Carril (“Un amor,” “La reconquista,” “Galgos”) as Ana and Óscar, down the years in, for Sorogoyen, a crucial decade in their lives, when they meet at 30, Ana still to work her life out, Oscar seemingly with his life set, who meet on a New Year’s Eve, and fall in love. They start a relationship which lasts 10 years.
“I have always been interested in the world of couples; in what makes two people attracted to each other, what makes them love each other and become a team, the sadness of disappointments, the pain that comes with separation, the time spent remembering each other, the hope of second chances….,” Sorogoyen said.
Above all, he added, he has always wondered “how life goes by and how people — who are always the same — stop being the way they once were and how, with the passing of time, they wonder if they are ready to love someone and love themselves better”.
For Sorogoyen, the period from thirty to forty is “a crucial decade for all of us.” “During these years, we make vital decisions and we have a sense of maturity, but it’s hard to leave youth behind.”
