From the original Altresmedia production promotional materials
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Series of the Year’
The Federation of Publishers Guilds of Spain (FGEE) has awarded the the Liber 2019 Award for the best audiovisual adaptation to Atresmedia Group Televisión for its collaboration with Bambú Producciones on the series Fariña, broadcast on Antena 3. The Liber 2019 Prize for the promotion of Reading in the Media goes to the program and initiative named Crea Lectura (Create Reading), also from Altresmedia.
The Liber Prizes are given at Liber, the international book fair that will run in Madrid this year October 9 to 11. The Liber Guest of Honor market is Sharjah this year.
The book fair is staged by IFEMA. the Trade Fair Institution of Madrid, and thus the Liber Award is a program of that show and its production. Last year, the show was in Barcelona and it drew 11,200 professional visitors, representing 458 companies from 51 nations covered by 180 journalists.
Crea Lectura is a site and service that’s described as being dedicated to “defending and recognizing the value of intellectual property and supporting the creators and their works” as rights holders.”
The project appears online as a kind of informational service that “gathers all the news of the literary world,” according to organizers of the Liber Prize, and highlights authors, artists, actors, fashion industry professionals, all discussing their favorite literature.
Fariña is a crime drama, a television series based on the book of the same title—which refers to flour as slang for cocaine. The book is nonfiction, a work of author Nacho Carretero, and it went to Netflix where it has been streamed under the title Cocaine Coast.
The award ceremony for the two prizes is to take place on October 10 at the Museo Lázaro Galdiano de Madrid, as part of Liber fair’s events.
The board of directors of the Federation of Publishers Guilds of Spain is keen with these awards on recognizing what it calls “the remarkable contribution made by the Atresmedia Group to reading as an instrument of social cohesion and progress.”
In the Crea Lectura program, the organization says , the company is producing a bi-weekly contribution to “creators and their works,” a program that has been running since March 2018, both in broadcast and online formats.
And the board commends the Fariña adaptation for its “huge images” depicting a realistic evocation of ” the harsh reality of drug trafficking in the 1980s and its social and political implications.”
“Fariña portrays the history of drug trafficking in the Rías Baixas from the smuggling of tobacco to the introduction of hashish and cocaine along the Galician coast,” according to the jury’s commentary. “The series has attracted almost unanimous agreement about its quality as a television product and is the series of the year.”
In addition to these awards, Liber book fair honors will go to:
- The Rafael Alberti bookshop in Madrid
- Boixareu Ginesta as bookseller of the year
- Ricardo Conejo Ramilo at the Municipal Public Library for “the best initiative to promote reading in libraries open to the public”
Still to be named is the 2019 recipient of the “most outstanding Spanish-American author ” award and a prize for a standout publisher in the market.
More from Publishing Perspectives on awards in publishing is here, on books to screen is here, and on the Spanish market is here.