Movistar Plus frames 'Patagonia' as a groundbreaking international collaboration that bridges European and Latin American storytelling. The series is positioned as premium prestige content with universal themes — a mother searching for her missing son in one of Earth's most breathtaking yet dangerous landscapes.
Sources close to the production hint at intense conditions on set. Hornopirén, where filming began in April, is remote and rugged — not exactly glamorous location work. One insider notes this isn't typical star-on-vacation territory. The eco-thriller angle also signals Movistar Plus is doubling down on socially relevant content after 'Hierro' proved international co-productions can travel.
Production initiated April 2026 in Hornopirén, the northern gateway to Patagonia and home to millennial alerce tree forests. The series will continue filming there until end of May before relocating to Basque Country for two weeks. Itziar Ituño is starring as Alicia alongside Unai Arana as her disappeared son Noah.
This production marks a significant bet on cross-continental storytelling — if 'Patagonia' delivers, expect more ambitious international collabs from Movistar Plus. But with environmental crime at its dark heart and family trauma driving the narrative, this isn't feel-good content. It's the kind of project that wins awards and haunts viewers long after credits roll.
Spain's Movistar Plus is going all-in on international prestige drama with "Patagonia," a six-episode eco-thriller that just started shooting in the wilds of southern Chile — and they've landed a major star to anchor it. Itziar Ituño, best known as inspector Raquel Murillo from Netflix's global phenomenon "Money Heist" (La Casa de Papel), is leading the cast as Alicia, a mother whose adolescent son vanishes without a trace in one of Earth's most remote and unforgiving landscapes.
The premise reads like a pressure cooker: Alicia travels from her native Bizkaia in Spain's Basque Country to Chile's Patagonia region after her son Noah goes missing. What begins as a desperate search quickly spirals into something far more dangerous, with ancient forests serving as the backdrop for encounters with illegal logging mafias and threats that dig up old family wounds. "Her search becomes a desperate race where each clue reveals new threats and old family wounds," the synopsis teases — because apparently getting lost in Patagonia wasn't complicated enough.
This isn't just another international co-production, though. For Movistar Plus, "Patagonia" represents something more strategic: one of its first major series partnerships with Latin American creators. Chilean powerhouses María Elena Wood and Patricia Pereira are behind the project, bringing a distinctly local perspective to what producers hope becomes globally resonant content.
Wood, a doyenne of premium Chilean television with credits including Platino Prize winner "News of a Kidnapping," "Dignity," and "Ramon," co-created alongside Pereira ("Mary & Mike," "Dignity"). The series is directed entirely by Rodrigo Susarte, whose recent work includes breakout sci-fi thriller "Hidden Island" which premiered at the 2026 Berlinale Series Market Selects. Filming kicked off in April in Hornopirén — described as the northern gateway to Patagonia and home to ancient alerce tree forests that have stood for millennia.
Production will remain there through the end of May before relocating to the Basque Country for two weeks of additional shooting. The location choices aren't accidental: Movistar Plus is leaning hard into the visual drama of untouched wilderness, positioning "Patagonia" as an eco-thriller where nature itself becomes both character and antagonist. The backing behind this project reveals just how seriously it's being taken on multiple continents.
Spain's Diputación Foral de Bizkaia (the government of Bilbao's Basque province), Chile's governmental CNTV agency, and Televisión Nacional de Chile — the country's public broadcaster — are all invested. Germany-based ZDF Studios handles international distribution, giving the series a clear path beyond Spanish and Chilean audiences. "'Patagonia' represents a new way of producing international fiction: A series uniting financing, creative talent and production from Europe and Latin America to create a show with truly global ambition," said Atlantika Films executive producer Nano Arrieta.
The supporting cast includes notable names from across the Spanish-speaking entertainment world: Kandido Uranga ("Maspalomas"), Pablo Macaya ("42 Days of Darkness"), Marcelo Alonso ("El club"), Sara Becker ("The House of the Spirits"), Trinidad González ("A Fantastic Woman"), and Patricia Cuyul ("Spider"). Writing duties fall to Luis Barrales ("Mary & Mike") and Anastasia Ayazi ("My Sad Dead"), with production overseen by ZDF Studios' Sebastián Krekeler, Susanne Frank, Peter Nadermann, and Movistar Plus's Cristina Merino alongside the Chilean creators.
For Ituño herself, this marks another post-"Money Heist" venture into high-stakes territory — though trading Madrid bank heists for Patagonia logging wars is quite the pivot. "This is an intense and emotional story, set in a place of breathtaking beauty," she said from the shoot. "Alicia begins her desperate search for her adolescent son in a wild, unknown territory, confronting her own guilt and fears." Given that "Money Heist" made her a household name globally, the pressure is on to prove she's not a one-genre wonder — and based on the source material's ambitions, she might just pull it off.
