'Culpa Nuestra' Courtesy of Banijay Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Steve Matthews is attending the fifth edition of Iberseries & Platino Industria in Madrid this week to bring a taste of superindie Banijay Entertainment, the France-headquartered international content production and distribution giant behind such hits as Survivor, Black Mirror, Peaky Blinders, MasterChef and Big Brother, to the gathering for Spanish- and Portuguese-language content producers and other attendees. Hired in early 2023 as content partnerships executive in the company's central scripted department, the former executive of Octagon Films in Dublin and consulting producer on all three seasons of Showtime's The Borgias was promoted to the role of head of scripted, creative - partnered with Johannes Jensen as head of scripted, business - in January. Related Stories Movies Busan Film Festival: 5 Takeaways From the Strong 2025 Edition Music K-pop Stars ATEEZ Want to Keep Performing Even When They're Grandfathers In a Tuesday "Spotlight: Banijay" session, Matthews and Pilar Blasco, CEO of Banijay Iberia, will share insight into their content strategy and collaborations across markets. Ahead of his Iberseries appearance, Matthews talked to THR about the appeal of Spanish-language content, its "operatic" quality, Banijay's Spanish hits and what's next. Spanish-language content has, in recent years, shown such broad appeal around the world. How does it fit into Banijay's scripted strategy? At Banijay, we're doing 1,000 hours across 60 labels as the biggest scripted producer in Europe. I have this helicopter analogy, which still prevails. There are now more people in the helicopter, and we're a little bit tighter and a little bit more disciplined on what the helicopter is there to do. But the helicopter flies to a production banner, and we open the door and ask if they need anything. If they do, we try to help. If they don't, we go on to the next banner. So, to stick with this metaphor, we go across the labels, we open the door, we look down, and we say: "Hi, guys. Do you need some help with a tax incentive? Do you need some help getting that agent in New York to call you back about that book? Do you need me to help you set up a writer's room? Do you need help to get that French format? Banijay has made a very big thing out of lots of little things. So the game and strategy is all about maintaining the ability of the production companies to work in their markets, tell the stories that they're specialists in, maintain their creative identities, and not get in the way too much, but help and connect if we can. It's about [managing] the whole scale of it. English-language content has certain advantages. The U.K. remains our biggest territory, but Spain and Italy are close behind. Banijay's content partnerships executive Steve Matthews Courtesy of Banijay There are four primary scripted companies that we have in Spain. There's Pokeepsie Films, founded by [director, screenwriter and producer] Álex de la Iglesia, who I love, having already done 30 Coins with him. He makes big, bold, theatrical stuff. We also have Diagonal TV, which has done great premium stuff, such as The Patients of Dr. García. There's Dlo [Producciones], which produces brilliant genre content, such as [Netflix series] The Gardener. And there is the lovely Portcabo up in Galicia, which is doing unpretentious, excellent, well-crafted crime stuff. So, our Spanish production businesses are not a homogeneous thing. It's not just one thing, and I think that's how it's kind of endured. What do you see as the drivers behind the global success of Spanish content in recent years? For the rise of Spain over the last 10 years, distribution comes in. A third of the world speaks Spanish. So there's an automatic advantage there for Spanish content. Also, in Spain, the regulatory environment is great, there is an excellent tax systems. All of these are conducive to encouraging the excellent storytelling in Spain. It's a pretentious thing to say, but I think any movement in art usually has elements of finance or technology. However, I think it's never just that. There's also been a burst of storytelling that's come out of Spain. When I first started in Spain in 2016, I was reading scripts and saying to a colleague, "These scripts, they don't have any subtext. And he said: "You don't understand, Steve, we don't have subtext." And I said, "Oh, I see, you write in a different way." There's no "set it up really slowly and hold back the motivations." At the start of a Spanish story, you just go. You go to the front of the stage and sing. It's not like Tony Soprano where you wonder: "Is he happy or is he sad?" There's something operatic in Spanish storytelling. And I think that's something that has fit these times - of peo