La Termita Films, the production label of double San Sebastian Golden Shell winners Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo, has struck a production alliance with Accidental Films, the newly formed label founded by Sara Gonzalo, managing director over 2011-24 of production powerhouse Bambu Producciones.
The alliance catches Lacuesta and Campo at new career highs, Lacuesta having directed Berlin competition player “One Year, One Night” and “Saturn Return,” a Spanish Film and Direction winner at March’s Malaga Festival; Campo co-wrote Iciar Bollain’s anticipated “I’m Nevenka,” which world premieres in San Sebastian main competition this weekend.
Gonzalo served as general manager at Bambú when it moved into ever larger industrial propositions from 2011-13’s “Grand Hotel” to “Velvet” (2013-15), “Cable Girls” (2017-20) and “Fariña” (2018), driving an acceptance in international of original Spanish series without the need to be dubbed into neutral Spanish in Latin America.
She is joined at Accidental, launched in May, by Jacobo Martínez, a DP on all these series which boast outstanding production values.
Early projects at La Termita-Accidental take in comedy feature “La candidata y el guionista,” inspired by true events, the hiring of Gerard Florejachs – a monolog writer for late night host Andreu Buenafuente, the David Letterman of Spain – to spice up the speeches of politician José Montilla, the socialist candidate for president of Catalonia’s Generalitat government in 2006. He went on to win.
Written by Florejachs and Lacuesta, in “La candidata y el guionista” the candidate is female, running against a coarse unprincipled populist. The writer is superb at penning comedy but tongue-tied in real life, unable to hold down a relationship and now expecting his third child from a third different partner.
La Termita has produced films such as stolen child drama Victor Iriarte’s 2023 “Foremost by Night” (“Sobre todo de noche”), co-written by Campo and produced by Campo and Lacuesta.
Many Termita-Accidental projects are slightly or certainly larger industrial packages aimed at broader audiences.
Lacuesta and Campo are best known for their dramas, such as San Sebastian winner “Between Two Waters,” though “Saturn Return” is constantly comic in its subversion of audience expectation. That said, “La candidata y el guionista” is something of a departure.
“Isa and I are very keen on the idea of working on a comedy,” Lacuesta told Variety. “With Accidental on board, it’s viable to make this film with top-notch casts.”
Further projects are TV series, one a love story involving an iconic Spanish pop singer-writer, and another described as a “political thriller,” both again inspired on true events.
“These are contemporary stories which can be made with top-notch casts. We like the idea of producing more but work in scriptwriting and direction. We can bring part of the co-production, making both the kind of cinema we’re most associated with but also more commercial titles, growing in the broadest artistic and industrial sense,” said Lacuesta.
“We created Accidental to be able to develop and produce our own projects and stories, in the sense of titles from creators we want to work with and Isa and Isaki are at the top of our wish list. So we suggested to them uniting their talent, which is unquestionable, and our know-how in production on projects across the board and all kinds of budgets,” Gonzalo observed.
Lacuesta and Campo may write or direct or both on some projects. Likewise, Martínez may serve as DP on some titles, but is also developing his writing and directing career, he said.
The alliance also marks a partnership between two companies in two of the most vibrant parts of Spain in incentive terms. La Termita Films is an iconic label in Barcelona, capital of Catalonia, one of Europe’s regions with most fulsome film-TV subsidy lines. Gonzalo and Martínez have established Accidental Films in the Canary Island of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Canaries offering some of the biggest tax credits in Europe. Working from the Canary Islands, it aims to produce, while not discounting offering services on international shoots, Gonzalo said. She said that she is also keen to explore international co-production.
“At a time when so many companies in Spain are owned by conglomerates, it’s also exciting to create an axis between two true-blue independents,” Gonzalo enthused.
