Bavaria Media International Takes on Codex 632

Bavaria Media International has secured distribution for Codex 632, based on the bestseller of the same name by José Rodrigues dos Santos.

Codex 632 is a co-production between the Portuguese production company SPi, Portuguese TV station RTP and Brazilian streaming provider Globoplay. It is scheduled to premiere in 2023.

Maike Haas, director of acquisition and co-development at Bavaria Media, said: “The partnership with the renowned production house SPi fits perfectly with our strategy of acquiring more international projects. Codex 632 is one of our highlight projects for MIPTV 2023. It is an adventure and suspense series, where the main intrigue is built around the world-famous historical figure of Christopher Columbus and his origins, and the plot cleverly brings together historical heritage with a detective story. I’m sure Codex 632 has the potential to attract widespread international interest.”

Eva Pfaudler, deputy CEO of content distribution at Bavaria Media, added: “After we added international series such as Dark Lake (Pixcom, Canada) and Manners (Glassriver, Iceland) to Bavaria Media International’s portfolio at the beginning of the year, we are very happy about this new series from Portugal. We would like to thank our acquisition team: Lisa Fidyka, Eva Püttmann and Maike Haas. The cooperation with SPi is another big step on our strategic roadmap to explore attractive, international productions at an early stage of development as a world distributor.”

CEO João Pedro Lopes said: “The internationalization of our fictional content involves the development of original stories, excellence and creativity in terms of production and the creation of trusted partnerships that allow us to strengthen the presence of our series in the globalized market. Bavaria Media has a path of excellence and is part of the history of the audiovisual industry in Europe, so we believe that the series Codex 632 will make a path of discovery of new territories, just like our characters who investigate the origins of the navigator Christopher Columbus.”

José Fragoso, programming director of RTP1, said: “This project confirms an important moment of Portuguese fiction: it is the first co-production of RTP with Globoplay, born from the adaptation of one of the most best-selling books ever in Portugal, brings together creative teams from two countries very close emotionally and anticipates a very relevant international circulation potential. It is a very happy time for audiovisual production in the Portuguese language.”