Source : @Variety
MADRID — Netflix is turning “La Regenta”, Clarín’s 19th-century masterpiece and one of the most celebrated novels in Spanish literature, into a feature film starring “Elite” actress Ester Expósito and directed by Locarno prize-winner Mar Coll, Variety reported on Friday (Oct 23).
The film went into production on Friday, the same day it was announced. It is produced by María Zamora at Elastica Films, the company behind Carla Simón’s “Alcarràs” and “Romería”. Nothing had been known about the project before the announcement, and Variety said the film now stands as one of Spain’s biggest movies of 2027.
Netflix said the adaptation will be a new, contemporary version that reinterprets the classic from a “fresh female perspective”. With Coll directing, Zamora producing and Expósito in the lead, the project has been described as a women-led adaptation.
Published in 1884 and 1885, “La Regenta” follows Ana Ozores, a young and beautiful woman married off to Víctor Quintanar, a former magistrate twice her age, in Vetusta, a sleepy and stifling provincial city where, in Netflix’s words, “everything is known and everything is judged”. Seeking meaning in a loveless existence, Ana draws the predatory attention of her confessor, Magistral Fermín de Pas, and of the local Don Juan, Álvaro Mesía. “What begins as a private crisis becomes a silent struggle between desire, faith and social power, where Ana’s every move is watched, judged and used by those around her,” the synopsis reads.
Alongside Expósito, the cast includes International Emmy winner Oriol Pla (“I, Addict”) as Fermín de Pas, Vito Sanz (“Billionaires’ Bunker”) as Víctor Quintanar and Borja Luna (“Breathless”) as Álvaro Mesía. They are joined by Clara Ingold, Carlos González, Ana Torrent (“Thesis”), Itsaso Arana (“The Other Way Around”) and Gonzalo de Castro. The screenplay is by Coll, Anna R. Costa, co-writer of the series “Madrid Arde”, and Peruvian filmmaker Diego Vega.
“Clarín’s novel is so rich that dozens of different adaptations can be made from it, like those that came before ours or those that will follow it,” Coll said. “I have tried to approach the material, humbly, from a radically personal perspective, as I always do. I have made my own what has moved me most in the novel, and what explores the loneliness and heartbreak of this regent’s wife, who tirelessly longs to give meaning to her life. A luminous character inhabiting a universe poised to prey on her. A woman whose sensitivity and stubborn search constitute, in themselves, a form of resistance.”
Once attacked on its release, the nearly 700-page novel is now regarded in Spain as second only to “Don Quixote”. English novelist Julian Barnes called it “one of the great novels of the 19th century, alongside ‘Madame Bovary’ and ‘Anna Karenina’”, Variety noted. The book combines a searing portrait of a backward and hypocritical provincial Spain with a study of toxic male egotism and a deep dive into the psychology of Ana and Fermín de Pas.
The project marks Netflix’s latest move into major literary properties from the Spanish-speaking world, following its adaptations of Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in Colombia and “The Eternaut” in Argentina. Both became hits in the streamer’s global Top 10 for non-English titles.
Coll, a leading figure of new Catalan cinema across a 20-year career, is known for the Goya-winning “Three Days With the Family” and the series “Matar al Padre”. Her most recent film, “Salve María”, received a Special Mention at Locarno in 2024. Zamora, whose credits also include the 2023 San Sebastián Golden Shell winner “The Rye Horn” and “Creatura”, has won Spain’s National Cinematography Award for championing a new generation of Spanish auteurs, many of them women.
The original Variety post can be viewed on X: https://x.com/Variety/status/2113541679135199650.
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