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08. April 2013

ARTE boards Telecinco/Beta-adventure series “Alatriste”

Cannes, 8 April 2013. The adventure series Alatriste welcomes ARTE as the German-French partner on board. The cultural channel will be airing the opulently produced action adventure series, on which filming starts this summer in Spain. Produced by DLO and Beta Film for Telecinco and ARTE, Alatriste is based on the bestsellers by the internationally acclaimed author Arturo Perez-Reverte and plays out at the Spanish royal court during the era of Madrids Golden Age in the early 17th century. Diego Alatriste is a war veteran and gifted fencer who tries to earn his living as a mercenary in the service of the nobility and ends up caught between political and personal fronts. Starring in the lead role is Spanish actor Aitor Luna ("La Fuga," "Gran Reserva"); showrunner and director is Enrique Urbizu, whose most recent film "No Rest for the Wicked" was awarded five Goyas, Spain's coveted film award. As co-producer and distributor, Beta Film handles the international sales of the production.

1623. After years of fruitless negotiations, the British Crown Prince Charles, accompanied by his confidant the Earl of Buckingham, departs for Madrid to ask for the hand of the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna of Austria in marriage. Both the Spanish Inquisition as well as the Catholic French rulers are determined to prevent this at all costs. The mercenary Diego Alatriste and his faithful page, 16-year-old Inigo de Balboa, find themselves caught in the midst of murderous conspiracies and intrigues. Alatriste’s decision to save the lives of the Englishmen rather than kill them, as he was ordered to, leads to his own death sentence. While he succeeds in saving his neck time and again, the notoriously broke Alatriste keeps getting involved in love affairs that seem just as difficult to escape from. And then there’s Inigo who, though rudely put down by Alatriste, refuses to budge from the side of his master. Inigo wants to learn to become like him: a soldier, fencing master and ... a man.

Alatriste is produced by DLO and Beta Film for Telecinco and ARTE.