News

Horror master Álex de la Iglesia and Carolina Bang’s Pokeepsie Films (“30 Coins“) production company are joining forces with Atresmedia TV to adapt Sanctuary, a dystopian sci-fi podcast series, Variety reports today.

The eight-episode thriller series is directed by “30 Coins” directors Ruiz-Gallardón and Zoe Berriatúa.

In the dystopian thriller, “After a climate disaster, pregnant women live in the Sanctuary, a dome that protects them from pollution. Far from their families and society, they are cared for and at peace. Or so they believe. Pilar’s arrival will reveal the truth.”

Lucía Guerrero stars as Pilar, and Aura Garrido stars opposite as Valle, the engineer tasked with looking after the women.

Alba Ribas, Songa Park, Anna Canepa, Jaime Ordoñez, Melida Molina, Joan Sentís, Borja Luna, Manu Fullola, Juan Viadas, Blanca Velletbó, Melina Matthews, and Godeliv Van Den Brandt round out the cast.

The podcast series was created by Manuel Bartual and Carmen Pacheco.

Wide-eyed expectant mother Pilar takes up residence at an idyllic domed birthing retreat after a climate-fuelled crisis leads to a toxic atmosphere. She is introduced to Valle, the engineer tasked with looking after the women, and comes to senses the serene refuge holds a set of macabre secrets, nothing as it seems.

“Sanctuary” (“Santuario”), the first co-production between Spain’s internationally ambitious Atresmedia TV and Carolina Bang and Alex de la Iglesia at Madrid’s Banijay-backed Pokeepsie Films (“30 Coins”), merges a not-so-implausible, ominous backdrop with strong female leads to showcase the breadth of feminine resolve in the face of clear and present danger, all with a gripping tension.

“Four years ago, we loved the podcast. The story was so powerful and well-crafted that turning it into a series was something that happened very naturally,” Montse García, director of fiction at Atresmedia, told Variety. “We’ve collaborated with the creators...

As diverse in style and content as they are, Álex de la Iglesia’s films do share a few notable characteristics: an adrenaline-rush narrative propulsion, a penchant for startling left-hand swerves in their storylines, and an almost gleeful willingness to offend more delicate sensibilities when it comes to depictions of sex, violence, and religion. This holds true from the start of his career. De la Iglesia’s feature debut, the scrappy sci-fi satire Acción Mutante, revels in the chaos of his anarchic sensibilities, even if its critique of religion is mostly limited to a hysterical takedown of the sanctity of marriage.

In a future society dominated by the cult of health and beauty, the disenfranchised have been forced underground, turning to acts of terrorism against the ableist establishment. The most notorious of these bands of brothers is the so-called Mutant Action group, whom we meet in the middle of the...