“Veneno” writer-director-creators Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo – popularly known as Los Javis – have dropped an international trailer for its sequel, “Vestida de Azul” (“Veneno 2: Dressed in Blue”) sharing it in exclusivity with Variety.
Sold to HBO Max for the U.S., where it aired to acclaim, “Veneno” was picked as one of Variety’s best international series in 2020.
This time round, Los Javis produce through Suma Content, the Madrid-based label they launched in 2021, where they also serve as its creative directors. The series is its fourth production after “Una navidad con Samantha Hudson,” a Christmas special, “Cardo,” and “Cardo 2.” An Atresplayer original series, “Vestidas de Azul” is produced for Atresmedia Television in collaboration with Suma Content. Atresmedia TV International Sales handles international distribution.
The trailer begins two years after “Veneno” with Valeria, her figure inspired by the real-life Spanish journalist Valeria Vegas who penned La Veneno’s memoirs, returning to Valencia and discovering a VHS copy of Antonio Giménez Rico’s pioneering doc feature, “Dressed in Blue,” which world premiered at the 1983 San Sebastián Festival.
In “Vestidas de Azul,” Valeria, like Vegas in real life, sets out to discover what happened to its protagonists. She gets nowhere: 40 years after the documentary, many people still don’t want to talk, until a stranger comes up to her in the street and asks if she’s looking for Renée – Renée Amor Fernández, one of the six protagonists of “Dressed in Blue.” From the trailer, it looks like she scores an interview.
The trailer hints at the large emotional punch of “Vestidas de Azul” and its bigger themes.
“Understanding the past is necessary to write the future,” the trailer reads. “We’re not conscious of our past, because we’re not told about it, there’s a lack of legacy, of knowledge of those who fought for us in the past,” Javier Calvo told Variety, talking of Spain’s LGBT community. “Understanding her past, Valeria gains a better perspective on herself,” he added.
“Dressed in Blue” “made a bit of splash in the press at San Sebastián, was quite successful, but remained a minority LGBT play. With the series, we’d like to convert the documentary’s protagonists into a mainstream phenomenon, giving them what they didn’t have in the past: Fame but also respect and affection,” said Ambrossi.
“I know there’s a story there. They can’t be forgotten,” Valeria echoes in the trailer.
“Six women were given an opportunity with ‘Dressed in Blue’ and were told that they’d have a better life after the documentary and that didn’t happen,” Rodríguez told Variety. “Valeria takes people whom society doesn’t respect in the same way as other people and she gives them the respect and visibility which they merit.”
“Vestidas de Azul” is directed by Mikel Rueda, a director on “Veneno,” Claudia Costafreda and Ian de la Rosa, both writers on the series.
Screenwriters are Valeria Vegas, Javier Holgado, Susana López Rubio, Javier Ferreiro, Rueda and Costafreda. Rodríguez, Paca La Piraña, Alex Saint, Juani Ruiz, Goya Toledo, Ángeles Ortega and Desirée Vogue reprise their roles from “Veneno.” Rossa Ceballos, Bimba Farelo, Chloe Santiago, Geena Román, Alma Gormedino, Penélope Guerrero and Keyla Òdena play the six protagonistas of “Dressed in Blue.”
In “Vestidas de Azul,” if the trailer is anything to go by, Valeria has won that respect from her trans friends, given her book on La Veneno, and, at some moments in the trailer, a sense of normality, as her friends discuss if she should become a mum.
In scenes in the present, we wanted a series which was very contemporary and talked a lot about women today, and their relations today. We had marvellous screenwriters, like Claudia, creator of ‘Cardo,’ who knows how to talk about daily life in today’s world: Normal conflicts, normal relations. It’s lovely to find this ‘click’ in the present, which we were every interested in this new series,” Calvo said.
“Trans people are rarely portrayed in this way, in a natural way talking about anything we want: Friends, sex, men,” said Rodríguez.
What he likes most about “Vestidas de Azul,” Ambrossi noted, is that while “Veneno” “turns on two women, here, though Lola Rodrigúez is the absolute protagonist, there are many, 10 protagonists, which is historical, and with different bodies, minds, ways of seeing the world, and sexual orientation.”
Top-notch Spanish stars – Marisa Paredes, the star of Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Flower of My Secret” and “High Heels,” Pedro Casablanc, Mercedes Sampietro, Luis Callejo – take secondary roles.
“We have to represent our diversity. I’m not the same as another trans woman. All of us are our own worlds, unique. Trans people have to represented in their individuality, as well as part of the trans collective,” Rodriguez added.
As with “Veneno,” all trans figures are played by trans performers. “Every department has trans technicians,” said Ambrossi. “Since the three years from ‘Veneno,’ they’ve continued working and have come back to ‘Vestidas de Azul’ having developed a career. That has had a large effect on the series.”
Paca la Piraña has worked as a TV presenter (“Paca la Piraña, ¿dígame?,” “Paca te lleva al huerto”) and “Drag Race España” jury member. Rodríguez has starred in Fernando Colomo’s movie “Poliamor para principiantes” and two seasons of Netflix hit “Welcome to Eden.”
“Veneno” and “Vestidas de Azul” will be followed by the final part of a trilogy, “Piraña,” a series centered on the life of Paca la Piraña, who delivers the funniest moment of the trailer, while imparting a life-lived wisdom.
“La Mesías,” Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s awaited follow-up as writers-directors to “Veneno,” will bow on Movistar Plus+ this fall.