Cattleya Producciones to Adapt El Italiano for TV

Cattleya Producciones, part of ITV Studios, has acquired the audiovisual rights to Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s novel El Italiano, which it will adapt into a miniseries.

Inspired by real events, El Italiano takes place at the height of World War II in the Bay of Algeciras. When young bookseller Elena Arbués finds Teseo Lombardo, an Italian combat diver who tries to sink Allied ships in Gibraltar, washed up on the beach, their lives are changed forever.

The project is being headed by Arturo Díaz, managing director and executive producer of Cattleya, and Ricardo Tozzi, founder and president of Cattleya. Screenwriter Beto Marini (Sleep Tight, Retribution, Extinction) will be in charge of the novel’s adaptation.

“When we read El Italiano, it was impossible not to imagine a television series,” Díaz said. “Arturo Pérez-Reverte transports us to a unique time and unique places, makes us fall in love with his characters and both surprises and thrills us in equal measure. We can feel the danger of being a combat diver, the tension of being a spy crossing a border and above all, the passion of two highly nuanced characters. We want to make El Italiano an ambitious international series, worthy of an author who represents Spain all over the world.”

“El Italiano is a gripping adventure, love and espionage story, set in an unconventional location, Gibraltar, a British territory that was affected by the Second World War because it was bordered by Spain, a neutral country,” Tozzi added. “Its characters are ordinary men and women who, conditioned by the times in which they lived, led extraordinary lives. It is also the story of soldiers (sailors in this case) who were torn apart by internal conflicts caused by the armistice declared between Italy and the Allied Forces on September 8, 1943. Our protagonist, after that crucial date, will choose to side with the Italian Army fighting alongside the Allied Forces.”

Pérez-Reverte said, “In those tragic, dangerous years of World War II, there were brave men and women that history left behind and has forgotten: people who did daring, seemingly impossible things that their adversaries were incapable of imagining. El Italiano is my attempt to recover and honor their memory. I’m positive that this series from Cattleya, whose productions I have always admired for their quality, will be faithful to the story I wrote.”