In late April, Spanish streamer Movistar Plus+ announced that its long-term content executive Domingo Corral would be leaving the company. Two months later, Netflix confirmed that Teresa Moneo had quietly exited her role as Director of International Original Film.
Neither departure had been expected, and this afternoon, the pair spoke publicly for the first time about leaving their previous roles and their plans for the future during a session at San Sebastian’s Creative Investors’ Conference.
Corral and Moneo were joined on the panel by Sam Kozhaya, EVP, Operations and Corporate Development at Legendary Entertainment, and were introduced to the audience as newly independent producers.
“I’m kind of shocked to see independent producer because I still don’t know if I’m an independent producer,” Corral quipped onstage. “I guess that’s what I’d love to do because I’m passionate about cinema and TV series. I feel very excited about the future.”
Moneo described her departure from Netflix as a “personal decision”, noting that she had been at the streamer for “over six years.”
“I want to be a little closer to projects and work more closely with creators,” Moneo said of her future plans. “I wanted to see what I’m able to do on my own, so I decided to leave and really focus on projects, creators, and people that I want to work with.”
Moneo joked that she had “taken the summer off” to relax but she is now “having conversations” with various creators and companies about joining forces. She confirmed that she will continue to be based out of London.
Pointing to the contentious nature of his departure from Movistar Plus+, Corral joked it would be “generous” to say he simply exited the company. In May, weeks after it was announced that he would leave, almost 200 Spanish entertainment industry professionals, including Pedro Almodóvar, Javier Bardem, and Penélope Cruz, signed an open letter expressing support for Corral.
“I was so moved by the reaction,” Corral said when quizzed on the open letter. “This is the first time that I’ve been able to speak, so I want to say thank you to everyone who supported me. It was the best gift and I will never forget it. It will be with me for the rest of my life.”
Corral added that while the support was personally touching, it was also an endorsement of the long-term work he and his team at Moviestar had been doing to champion strong, authored Spanish filmmaking over the years.
He added that the streamer continues to have a “huge responsibility” in making sure that “good quality cinema” continues to come out of Spain. In his time at Moviestar, Corral’s credits included prestige titles like Alauda Ruiz De Azúa’s series Querer and Oliver Laxe’s Sirat, which won the Jury Prize in Cannes and is Spain’s Oscar submission this year.
Moving forward, Corral said he has “two or three ideas” that he’s excited about and is hoping to develop with talent.
“They’re in the very early stage,” he said. “The most important thing is not the ideas themselves but the people and the creators. That is what I’m really excited about. For me, it’s not so much about the IP. If you come to me with an IP that is amazing, but I have to work with difficult people, I don’t like that.”
Corral added: “To make a film or TV series, you have to overcome so many obstacles, so you want to share that with people you like. So what I’m excited about is not so much the ideas or IP, but that, fortunately, I have a few great people who want to work with me, and I want to work with them. And that’s what we’re starting to figure out. I’m going to be led by talent.”
Moneo said that he would “like to work more on television” and will work to develop a “diversified slate” that stretches “across all areas of distribution.”
Corral said that he will continue to work exclusively in Spain, but he would like his work to be “as international as possible.” However, the Spanish industry vet said budget restrictions continue to hinder the ambition of Spanish cinema.
“I will be very clear about this: If we want to see our films competing internationally, at Cannes and Venice, and competing at the Oscars, we need to be able to finance them,” he said.
“I’m talking about budgets around just 10 million. I will give you an example. Look at Sirat. When I was at Moviestar, Oliver Laxe was a director making films for around 1.5 million. His previous films were very small films. He needed more muscle to compete internationally. When you have a talent like Oliver Laxe, and you give them enough muscle, resources, and trust, we can compete internationally.”
Corral added: “We have the talent. What we need is stronger energy. How do we address that? When I was at Moviestar+, I did what I could. The average cost of a movie in Spain is 3 or 4 million. And that’s a big film. Competing internationally with that amount of money is very difficult.”
San Sebastian runs until September 27.
