Mil Colmilllos: the first Colombian HBO series

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After 15 years of productions in Latin America, HBO will premiere its first Colombian series

Diversifying audiovisual productions in Colombia has been complicated. Drug trafficking, war violence, and drugs are the recurring themes of his series, telenovelas, and movies. However, HBO wants to bet on a different story, according to its filmmakers.

Leer en español: Mil Colmillos: la primera serie colombiana de HBO

For 15 years, HBO Latin America has been producing series of high reputation, and although Netflix has taken little advantage, the international production company is betting on creating impact stories that remain in the minds of the region's viewers.

The Latin American bite of 'Mil Colmillos.'

The series, which began to be recorded in September of last year, is committed to telling a story of fiction as never before in Colombia has been done or is usually done.

"We started our production in Colombia with something that is not about drug traffickers, nor prepaid; is a Colombian story, fiction, with a spectacular script that has that unique ingredient that says 'this has to be on HBO',"said Gustavo Grossman, general manager of HBO Networks Latin America for El Espectador.

In spite of the almost nonexistent campaign of expectation that there is on the series, Grossman assures that it is an authentic production that never before had been made in Colombia. "It does not look like any other series you can see there on another entertainment offer," he adds.

Mil Colmillos will be a series of horror and suspense under the direction of filmmakers Jaime Osorio and Pablo González, known for the horror films El Páramo and Siete Cabezas, among other productions.

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The series will deal with themes already treated by Osorio and González before and in other audiovisual productions so that Mil Colmillos will be similar to the movie El Páramo. Thus, the story will be focused on an elite group of soldiers who encounter an enemy for which they were not prepared. "Many years ago we began with Jaime to work on the genre of terror, the psychological thriller and even military action, the madness of soldiers," Pablo González assures El Espectador.

Hand in hand with Rhayuela Films, HBO seeks to create a series that fits the Latin American context and does not imitate what Hollywood would do. "We are taking this parameter that already exists and making the recipe that allows us to find a broad audience," adds González, referring to the movie El Páramo.

The series is currently in post-production, after being recorded between September and December 2018 in Bogotá, Armero, Zipaquirá and other places in Colombia. The cast, consisting mostly of men, had to train in military techniques to embody their characters, according to the newspaper El Colombiano.

"The interesting thing for us is that it is the first series of action, terror and suspense that we produce on the continent and involves a quite large co-production. So far, what we have seen is very good, the product looks excellent, so the editing process comes so that the story is round, "says Grossman.

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The cast is made up of Carlos Mariño, Alejandro Buitrago, Jaisson Palacios, Héctor Sánchez, Carolina Ribón, Andrea Olaya, Jarlin Martínez, Andrés Londoño. The script was built jointly by Jaime Osorio and Guillermo Escalona .and Sebastián Carvajal; along with the stellar performance of Cláudio Cataño, known for the series A Mano Limpia

So things, it is expected that this first bet of HBO Latin America in Colombia announce its release date soon, to celebrate its 15th anniversary.

LatinAmerican Post | Jorge Becerra

Translated from "Mil Colmillos: la primera serie colombiana de HBO"