Géraldine Gonard, the event director, summarized the program’s contents, highlighting that 55 activities will be offered, with nearly 100 speakers participating.
Conecta Fiction & Entertainment revealed the program’s highlights for its ninth edition. The forum for audiovisual professionals, with France and Canada as this year’s focus countries, will be held from June 16 to 19 at the Teatro Auditorio José Luis Perales and the Hospedería del Seminario in Cuenca (Castilla-La Mancha).
Ana Isabel Fernández, general director of Tourism, Commerce, and Crafts of the Castilla-La Mancha Regional Government, pointed out that thanks to the work of the Castilla-La Mancha Film Commission, last year they had more than 70 series, feature films, and advertising shoots. “So far this 2025, we have managed 148 requests for information, 57 projects have been shot, and a dozen more will be filmed in the coming weeks.”
The spokeswoman for the region of Castilla-La Mancha, which has been hosting Conecta since 2022, indicated that they will take advantage of the forum to announce in Cuenca the two winners of the III Feature Film and TV Series Production Contest, which will award a prize of €100,000 to each project.
Géraldine Gonard, the event director, summarized the program’s contents, highlighting that 55 activities will be offered, with nearly 100 speakers participating.
The delegations from the focus countries will include fifty companies from France and Canada, the largest professional presence ever at an international event held in Spain.
This year, the pitching sessions for international projects will include two new calls for films for platforms: Pitch Direct to Streaming Movies and Pitch Innova Formats.
The Conecta 9 conference agenda will feature international consulting firms The Wit, Glance, and Fabric, which will offer an overview of the current state of audiovisual production in Europe and Latin America. Keynotes will be delivered by the top representatives of major French production powerhouses such as Banijay and Gaumont.
Companies from Brazil and Portugal, last year’s edition’s focus countries, return to Conecta Fiction & Entertainment for content showcases and exclusive networking moments to seek new co-production opportunities.
2025 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
The first Pitch Talent for creatives
Conecta aims to serve as a launching pad for new talent, offering screenwriters and creatives for the first time a unique visibility showcase. To this end, it has partnered with five of the most prestigious screenwriting labs in the Spanish industry: Residencias Academia de Cine, IsLABentura Canarias, CIMA Impulsa, DAMA Ayuda, and La Incubadora de ECAM.
Each will select a talent who participated in the last edition and invite them to pitch their project in the new Pitch Talent, which will take place on Wednesday, 18, at 12:30 in Auditorium 1 of Conecta.
After presenting their respective fiction projects individually, the five participants will share the stage in a round table moderated by famed screenwriter and executive producer Javier Olivares. Olivares’ credits include iconic series such as El Ministerio del Tiempo, Isabel, and Ena. Queen Victoria Eugenia.
Hunting: a franchise that crosses borders
Before the Awards Gala on Wednesday, the evening of Wednesday, the 18th, Conecta’s accredited guests will be able to enjoy the presentation of La Caza. Irati, fourth season of the saga produced by DLO Producciones that conquered viewers and was adapted with great success in France under the name of Rivière-Perdue. This new installment will be released in 2025 for the first time on Movistar Plus+.
José Manuel Lorenzo, president and founder of DLO Producciones, and prominent members of the cast, will unveil the details of this psychological thriller starring Megan Montaner, Félix Gómez, and Silvia Alonso set in the Irati Forest (Navarra) as a new scenario. The series is directed by Rafa Montesinos (El Inmortal, Rapa) and Javier Pulido (La Caza), and created by Agustín Martínez.
Conecta Fiction Fest: the first Conecta festival open to the public
For the first time in its history, Conecta organizes Conecta Fiction Fest, a festival that aims to bring the great international series to the citizens of Cuenca and series lovers.
Under the auspices of the Consorcio de la Ciudad de Cuenca, the festival will run parallel to the Conecta Fiction & Entertainment conference program for professionals. It will offer screenings and premieres in large format of some of the most recent titles in European and Latin American serialized fiction.
The screenings, in which the audience will be able to meet first-hand some producers and actors starring in the series, will take place at the Teatro Auditorio José Luis Perales in Cuenca:
On Monday 16, the first two episodes of Zorro, a co-production of Paramount+ and France Télévisions filmed in Castilla-La Mancha and soon to be released by AMC+ in Spain, will be screened, with the attendance of producer Marc Dujardin and leading actress Audrey Dana.
Tuesday 17 will be the turn of The Incredible Story of Julia Pastrana, a new Disney+ series starring Fátima Molina and Eduardo Noriega.
On Wednesday, 18, the series concludes with Favàritx, the first Spanish series set and filmed on the island of Menorca. It was a finalist and awarded at the seventh edition of Conecta held in Toledo.
The program also includes a round table on Tuesday, 17, at 17:30, on literary adaptations to the screen, with María Contreras, Head of Movies & Scripted Spanish International Originals at Prime Video & Amazon Studios, participating.
Accompanied by three heavyweights of contemporary Spanish literature whose works have been adapted into series and films that have captivated audiences around the world: Juan Gómez-Jurado, author of the Reina Roja and Cicatriz trilogy; María Dueñas, creator of novels such as El tiempo entre costuras and La templanza, or the series Los artistas; and Manel Loureiro, creator of the Apocalipsis Z trilogy, whose first installment Apocalipsis Z: el principio del fin became the most watched international original movie in Prime Video’s history last December.
