The eight-episode thriller will premiere on TV3 and the 3Cat platform, and will be distributed by The Mediapro Studio.
The Mediapro Studio has announced today at Miptv its new series El mal (Quiet), an eight-episode thriller co-produced with 3Cat, which will premiere on TV3 and the 3Cat platform.
Lluis Arcarazo is the creator of this fiction set in Barcelona that tells the story of an investigation to find a serial killer who has chosen the weakest link in society as victims: the homeless. David Verdaguer (winner of two Goya awards for Saben That and Verano 1993) and Ángela Cervantes (twice nominated for Goya Awards for La maternal and Chavalas), will be the protagonists of this series, whose filming will begin in Barcelona in the coming weeks directed by by Marta Pahissa.
Laura Fernandez Espeso, Javier Méndez, Lluís Arcarazo and Bernat Elías are the executive producers for The Mediapro Studio and Oriol Sala-Patau and Conxa Orea are the executive producers for 3Cat. The series will debut on 3Cat and The Mediapro Studio Distribution has worldwide sales rights.
“With El mal we elevate the thriller to another level. The series, with a classic narrative and indebted in some way to great masters of contemporary cinema such as David Fincher or Michael Mann and with echoes of films such as Seven, Zodiac or Collateral, or series such as Mindhunter thoroughly introduces us to the investigation of these crimes in the context of a less luminous Barcelona, but fascinating in its portrait and photography,” commented Javier Méndez, Head of Film and Co-Head of Television at The Mediapro Studio.
El mal is created and written by Lluís Arcarazo, who is the main screenwriter of all the episodes of the series, with the collaboration of screenwriters Guillermo Cisneros and María Jaen. Arcarazo has previously worked with The Mediapro Studio in the film Salvador (Puig Antich) and in the series Nit i dia, directed by Oriol Paulo, which was a success in territories such as Australia, Italy, Brazil, the United States, Sweden and the United Kingdom, among others.
Marta Pahissa will be the director of the eight episodes of the series. Fiction and documentary director with more than twenty-five years of experience, Pahissa has directed titles such as Rapa for Movistar Plus+, Smiley for Netflix, and Ser o no ser for RTVE, the latter also produced by The Mediapro Studio.
The plot of El mal is based on a true story. At the end of April 2020, in the midst of confinement due to COVID-19, the authorities arrested a man accused of murdering several homeless people one after another on the streets of Barcelona. Always following the same patterns: always while they were sleeping and always with extreme brutality. With this approach, and in that context of an empty and confined city, Arcarazo develops the idea of Evil, with the double meaning of both evil and a virus that infects its victims.
The homicide agents in charge of the investigation, their closest personal environment and those who are forced to live on the streets of Barcelona without the possibility of fleeing from any evil are the main characters of the story.
David Verdaguer is one of the great actors of the moment in our country, winner of two Goya awards for Saben That and Verano 1993, as well as two Feroz Awards and two Gaudí Awards, among others. Ángela Cervantes is one of the actresses with the greatest projection, nominated twice for the Goya awards for La maternal and Chavalas, works for which she was awarded with two Gaudí Awards.
This project has the support of the ICEC (Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises-Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises).
