Netflix teased one of its most anticipated Latin American releases to date, “The Eternaut” (“El Eternauta”), at a decked-out themed fête ahead of today’s streaming release to 200 countries, dubbed into more than 12 languages, with subtitles in more than 30.
Directed by Bruno Stagnaro, who co-directed the country’s cult classic “Pizza, Beer and Cigarettes” (“Pizza, Birra, Faso”) before going on to helm the lauded series “Okupas,” the six-episode series was written by Stagnaro and actor-scribe Ariel Staltari and produced by Hugo Sigman, Matías Mosteirin, Leticia Cristi and Diego Copello at Buenos Aires-based K&S Films (“Wild Tales”).
“This series is an expression of what an entire industry is capable of. We’ve gained a lot of knowledge in making it, and we believe that this project expands our country’s productive capacity to produce audiovisual content,” Mosteirin told a packed auditorium.
A modern sci-fi thriller based on the seminal Argentine graphic novel of the same name — penned by Héctor Germán Oesterheld, illustrated by Francisco Solano López and first published as a serialized comic strip that ran from 1957-1959 — the series explores the aftermath of a deadly snowfall, tracking its survivors attempts to salvage their collective fate.
Resonant and riveting, it manages broader social critique and boosts themes of resilience and solidarity. Ricardo Darín’s (“The Secret In Their Eyes”) everyman, Juan Salvo, leads a venerable cast of fellow survivors through its suspense-laden narrative, together tasked with warding off a threat shrouded in mystery.
Staltari (“El Puntero”), Carla Peterson (“Lalola”), César Troncoso (“Yosi, the Regretful Spy”), Marcelo Subiotto (“Puan”), Andrea Pietra (“Socias”), Claudio Martínez Bel (“El agrónomo”), Orianna Cárdenas and Mora Fisz round out the ensemble.
Pouring into its Latin American market, Netflix bet large on the pulse-heightening project, one of the country’s most ambitious to date which incorporated live and virtual sets — a first for a series of this scope in the region. Pulling from the robust Argentine audiovisual talent pool, the production generated hundreds of local jobs, lending an assist to the filmmaking economy in the process.
“Argentines are extremely talented. When they have the opportunity and resources, their talent emerges, grows and flourishes. We end up being more of a vehicle than anything else, we’re a vehicle for storytellers to bring unique and special projects to our members,” Netflix Lat Am’s VP of content, Francisco “Paco” Ramos, told Variety.
“In March 2018, we launched our first series in Argentina. Seven years later, we’re at this level of volume, diversity and ambition that’s very good. Above all, it means that there’s talent in Argentina. No matter how much intention we had, no matter how much desire and commitment to invest money, if there weren’t directors, screenwriters, producers, actors, actresses and technicians from all areas carrying out the productions with our money, little could be done. I want to make it clear that we’re going to continue betting on Argentina,” he continued.
The country is no stranger to savvy homegrown IP, from the independent cinema scene to several Netflix originals that have enjoyed ravenous buzz upon their debuts on the streamer, most notably director Gabriel Medina’s (“The Paranoids) raucous romantic comedy “Envious” (“Envidiosa”) and the Harlan Coben adaptation “Caught” (“Atrapados”), directed by Miguel Cohan (“Blood Will Tell) and Hernán Goldfrid (“The Bronze Garden”).
Add to that the ability to produce compelling comedy, drama and, now, large-scale sci-fi, and the Spanish-language Latin American market is in a place to embolden further investment across-territories. For the global market at large, audiences and producers have evermore access to the region’s intimate and extraordinary, “The Eternaut” promising an absorbing thrill-ride with a message, gently raising the stakes.
“Argentina is very important for several reasons. One, because the quality of content produced in Argentina, both fiction and non-fiction in general, is extremely high. We’re committed to bringing our members high-quality, ambitious content,” Ramos relayed. “On the other hand, Argentinians love to watch Argentinian content. The feedback we get from our members is: ‘We want more Argentine content, but above all: We want Argentine content with more ambition, more quality and more variety.’ We have to keep doing it because, at the end of the day, we owe it to our members,” he added.
The series is unapologetically Argentine, the city of Buenos Aires acting as an extension of the characters themselves. The protagonists play Ibero-Latin card game Truco instead of poker, national rock bands rift over airwaves to bolster the mood, touches that will certainly translate to broader audiences, yet give the series a distinct, unmistakable local flair.
“‘We like to see stories with our cultural traits, to recognize our identity, the one we love so much and deny so much, what makes us unique and complex. Art, once again, functions as an idiosyncratic mirror that questions us about why we are the way we are,” Mosteirin explained. “This project invited us, challenged us, forced us to revisit the artistic tradition of our country, to compare the era in which the original work was written with our own, the fears of that time with the hopes of today,” he added.
The project posits that it takes a village, and amidst the fissures of the current global socio-political climate, the show provides a salve alongside its reminder that collective ignorance can morph into collective rage or collective action, it carries sentiments transmutable to our modern age, as relatable as when they were first hashed out in print.
The terror presented is grounded and tangible, and, as Ramos opined, “Anything that engages with current events remains relevant. The reality is that human beings always have the same issues, the same problems. Things change, but they don’t. The context will change, technology will change, but the need to love, to be loved, to be happy, to search, to investigate, to be curious, that hasn’t changed.”
variety.com
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