Not content with heading to Mexico for Club de cuervos, Spain for Las chicas del cable and Brazil for 3%, Netflix has recently sets its sights on Argentina. Earlier this month, at a conference in Buenos Aires, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos announced an expanded slate of 10 original Argentine productions including series and documentaries. “Argentinians love watching local content on Netflix, which is one of the reasons we are thrilled to be working with the best in the industry, from Daniel Burman to Sebastian Mellino, to create local, quality content across every genre,” said Sarandos. “The world has never been as excited about television and film, and through our continued local investment, we are honored to foster and elevate the long tradition of innovative storytelling.”
As with their forays into local content elsewhere, Netflix has tapped into some of that country’s talented pool of filmmakers. Director Daniel Burman (The Tenth Man, A Chrysanthemum Burst in Cincoesquinas), for example, is headed to TV with the upcoming series Edha. Focused on a trendsetting designer in Buenos Aires whose model muse whose “hidden agenda will set in motion a series of betrayals that cause their worlds to unravel” as its synopsis suggests, looks to be a perfect binge-watch addition to the Netflix slate.
Sarandos also teased several other projects that are in the works, including the four part docu-series Boca Juniors: La Pretemporada, which will surely have Argentine viewers (and soccer fans everywhere) excited. But over here we’re most looking forward to Go! Vive a Tu Manera. The Fame slash Glee-sounding show is being billed as “a musical teen novela about an orphan girl who receives a dance scholarship to a prestigious academy, acclaimed for its performing arts department and elite students, to pursue her dreams of becoming a star performer while struggling as a fish out of water.” The series is backed by a who’s who of musical teen fare, which includes including creator and musical director Sebastian Mellino (of Disney Channel Latin America’s Violetta and Soy Luna) as well as writer Patricia Maldonado (Chiquititas, Rebelde Way). The project sounds unlike anything else on the global streaming service, which makes us all the more curious about it. Go! Vive a Tu Manera is set to premiere in 2018.
Additional upcoming titles in the slate include Fangio: El hombre que domaba las máquinas, a documentary about race car legend Juan Manuel Fangio, and six comedy specials launching throughout the year from Sebastian Wainraich, Malena Pichot, Lucas Lauriente, Fernando Sanijao, Luciano Mellera, and most recently signed, Agustín Aristarán “Radagast”.