RTVE arrives at ATF 2025 with a robust selection of content spanning historical fiction, contemporary social issues, and crime investigation formats. The Spanish public broadcaster’s lineup includes ambitious prime-time dramas and several documentary series designed to explore complex global and domestic subjects.
The offering features strong period dramas, including Ena (6 x 55′), which chronicles the life of a young Englishwoman who becomes Queen of Spain, renouncing her past to face a foreign land, an assassination attempt on her wedding day, and the turmoil of two world wars, a civil war, and the Spanish flu. Another historical narrative is Las Abogadas (6 x 50′), a series based on the real-life story of four labor lawyers—Lola González, Cristina Almeida, Paca Sauquillo, and Manuela Carmena—from the final stage of Franco’s regime through the 1977 Atocha lawyers massacre. A third title, Asuntos Internos (6 x 60′), is a drama-thriller set in 1970s Madrid, following Clara, one of Spain’s first policewomen, as she infiltrates a plot to uncover a corruption network linked to heroin trafficking.
The slate also features high-stakes thrillers with contemporary resonance. La Frontera (5 x 60′) is a period thriller set in 1987 where a Guardia Civil captain, upon discovering an imminent ETA attack in Paris, defies the Spanish government to act with a French policeman. The tension is heightened as his partner is secretly affiliated with ETA but is forced to help him thwart the attack, leading to a race against time involving betrayals and loyalty dilemmas. A contemporary «southern noir,» Weiss & Morales (4 x 85′), is set in the Canary Islands and follows the professional friction between Nina Weiss, a German BKA agent, and Raúl Morales, a Spanish Civil Guard sergeant, as they investigate crimes in a community where German expats and Canary Islanders live side by side.
RTVE is committed to social drama and documentary storytelling. The intimate series Dieciocho (6 x 30′) breaks down prejudices around immigration by following the relationship between Cèlia, serving court-ordered community hours, and Moha, an unaccompanied migrant minor working to gain legal status, as they navigate their dreams and discover first love. Sin Gluten (8 x 55′) focuses on Ricardo, a Michelin-starred chef whose alcohol problem leads to his dismissal. He finds redemption as a teacher at his former cooking school, where his students, including youth at risk of social exclusion, help him reconnect with his passion for cooking.In factual programming, Hope Estamos A Tiempo (6 x 60′) guides viewers through solutions inspired by the global Project Drawdown plan to reduce carbon emissions and regenerate the planet, using an emissions simulator to quantify each strategy’s impact. Historical documentaries include Las Heroinas del Puente de los Cuervos (1 x 56′), which focuses on Spanish women exiled during the Civil War who became spies for the French Resistance before being imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Another intriguing documentary thriller, ADN Colón. Su Verdadero Origen (1 x 90′), follows the two-decade-long DNA investigation aiming to confirm the true origin of Christopher Columbus. Finally, Megamix Brutal (3 x 44′) is a documentary series that uses the history of the Max Music record label and the rivalry of its founders to reflect Spanish society through three decades of dance music. The documentary SAC (7 x 40′) details the methods of the National Police Force’s Behavior Analysis Section in solving complex cases by analyzing the criminal mind. The lineup is completed by ALTER EGO (3 x 35′), a documentary that explores advances in Artificial Intelligence worldwide, designing two fictional worlds with state-of-the-art AI tools.
