Show of the week: Black Forest

Black Forest has been a hit for regional Spanish station TV Galicia, and now Imagina has repurposed it for overseas markets with international-friendly hour-long episodes and a dub into natural Spanish.

The series, known locally as Serramoura, has been a primetime favourite in TV Galicia’s Sunday night schedules, with a peak share of about 22%.

It follows events in an apparently quiet rural village, dominated by two families that control the local wood industry. The peace is shattered when a young girl is murdered. A local cop is then forced to buddy up with a detective from the city and the pair unearth a murky mystery, long-held secrets and intrigue in a Broadchurch-style serialised drama.

In its original form, the series runs to 24x70mins. However, aware that 70-minute episodes do not sit well in many international schedules, Imagina is re-editing the series into commercial hours, meaning a greater number of overall episodes (which will likely be split into two seasons) and a run-time with which most broadcasters are comfortable.

Madrid-based Imagina has been tracking Black Forest since it went into production says sales manager Barbora Susterova, and the vendor finally agreed a deal for international rights just ahead of MIPCOM.

She says sales to Latin America are a target at NATPE and despite the region’s broadcasters being big on telenovelas, she is confident of doing deals. “They mainly want shorter series when it comes to acquisitions,” says Susterova. “Spanish drama also does well on US Hispanic channels.”

Imagina is also shopping the format rights to the show.

The show: Black Forest
The producer: Voz Audiovisual
The distributor: Imagina International Sales
The broadcaster: Televisión de Galicia
The concept: Murder-mystery drama in which two cops investigate the death of a young girl