Spains fast-growing production house Mediacrest Entertainment is launching high-concept eco-reality contest format El pueblo (The Village), which will have its international market premiere at this weeks MipTV trade fair.
Designed as a primetime reality show, El pueblo has been structured as a social experiment, charting five families attempt to settle in an abandoned village, guided by the principles of sustainability and globally connected self-sufficiency.
The families will create their own rules, events and traditions, will initiate agriculture and livestock initiatives and start trading with nearby towns, sand later with the world. The twist: Only one winning family finally gets to stay in the village.
Our goal is to provide the audience with content not only attractive in terms of television, but also that makes a social contribution, said Daniel Domenj, entertainment factual business manager at Mediacrest.
We believe the format is closely linked to the needs, concerns and demands of the citizens of Western society in the 21st century. It marks an experiment aimed at making society aware that it is possible to live in another way, giving nature back the importance it deserves, he added.
The awareness El Pueblo seeks goes beyond content, being part of Mediacrests strategy of proposing brand new TV formats about basic needs, and universal sociological theories.
The format has been created by a team led by Hugo Toms, Mediacrests head of entertainment, with large experience in directing and producing high-profile entertainment TV shows such as MasterChef, Insiders and Temptation Island.
Mediacrest executives attending MipTV will explain for the first time to the international market the mechanics of El Pueblo, whose foreign versions, also scheduled to be lensed in an abandoned town in Spain, will host contestants fighting to make it the ideal place to start a new life in the country.
El pueblo forms part of a building Mediacrest non-fiction output, whose flagship content to date is El Cazador, a hit daily contest aired in Spain by public broadcaster TVEs La 1, adapting ITVs British format The Chase.
The Spanish success of El Cazador has also allowed the format to air as La noche de los cazadores, broadcast on La 1 primetime.
With El Cazador, which has been renewed by TVE for a 12th season, Mediacrest has managed to establish a project for a content-generating company that did not exist just four years ago.
Establishing these 12 seasons of El Cazador implies not only consolidating the project but also giving guarantees to other TV operators that we are capable of producing quality entertainment with good audiences, Domenj explained.
Further unscripted formats produced by Mediacrest in Spain take in docu-reality Crnicas del Zoo, teaming with Discovery, broadcast by Andalusias Canal Sur.
One of Spains fastest-expanding indie TV companies, Mediacrest has already initiated TV fiction production with Rodrigo Martn Antoranz and Pedro Garca Ros thriller series Demokracia, recently greenlit by TVE.
The Madrid and Barcelona-based company is also co-producing submarine-set TV drama Nautilus with Colombias Narcos producer Dynamo for TelevisaUnivisions ViX.