Pure Fiction Television, the indie helmed by Tom Winchester (Shogun, Clickbait, The Capture), has secured the rights to bestselling author Dolores Redondo’s Baztan Trilogy and the prequel, La Cara Norte Del Corazón (The North Face of The Heart) and is developing them into a returning, premium international TV series.
From one of the world’s most popular Spanish authors, the trilogy and prequel novel, featuring homicide detective Amaia Salazar, are psychological thrillers with mystery, mythology and superstition, set in the Basque region of Northern Spain, as well as in New Orleans.
Pure Fiction is developing the project with screenwriter and playwright, Lydia Adetunji (His Dark Materials, Noughts & Crosses, The Last Kingdom).
Winchester (pictured) has secured the rights to all four novels having previously optioned La Cara Norte Del Corazón whilst President of Heyday Television. German producer Peter Nadermann previously owned the film rights to the Baztan trilogy of novels and will act as an Executive Producer on the series.
Whilst the books have been translated into 39 languages worldwide, this will be a dual language (Spanish and English) adaptation, and Winchester intends to bring an authentic European feel to the series that will have a truly global appeal and be housed within his burgeoning slate of ‘Prestige Commercial’ content: elevated, bold drama, which is ambitious in style and scale, yet unashamedly entertaining and with a commercial sensibility.
Winchester said: “When I first read The North Face of The Heart I couldn’t put it down. It’s a unique mix of supernatural crime drama, psychological thriller and epic disaster movie. All of the Baztan novels are real page-turners, featuring an intelligent and emotionally intuitive female lead in Amaia. Dolores already has a global fanbase and in Lydia Adetunji we have found a world-class screenwriter who will bring Amaia to life for a whole new audience via this premium adaptation.
“We want to keep true to Dolores’s visceral Spanish sensibility and intend to work with European partners to bring an epic and authentic feel to the series, something Pure Fiction is hugely passionate about; developing big, bold returning series that subvert expectation and have something to say about the world in which we live.”
Pure Fiction is also in latter stages of development on a major high-end adaptation of the Rivers of London series of bestselling books, short stories, novellas and graphic novels by Ben Aaronovitch.
Pippa Considine
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