In its quest to be the undisputed king of streaming, Netflix is expanding its base to enter newer markets, markets it has never entered before. The latest territory conquered by Netflix is Portugal. The streaming giant has just announced its first ever Portuguese Original series, titled ‘Glória’.
Though Netflix has several Portuguese shows in its library, those are all licensed shows. Glória will be the first ever Portuguese series that is commissioned and created by Netflix.
Glória will be produced by the SPi production company of Grupo SP Televisão and co-produced by RTP. The Netflix Original will be directed by Tiago Guedes. Shooting will take place in the Portuguese capital city, Lisbon. Parts of Glória will be filmed in the Ribatejo region of the country.
Glória is set in the backdrop of the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. It has a very intriguing premise. Raret, an American broadcasting unit, located in the small village of Glória do Ribatejo, broadcasts Western propaganda to the Eastern Bloc. The primary protagonist João Vidal, who is an an engineer linked to the Estado Novo families, is recruited by the KGB to embark on several dangerous, high-risk espionage missions. The missions are such that they have the power to change the course of Portuguese and world history.
Glória has signed on both Portuguese as well as international actors for its cast. Miguel Nunes, Carolina Amaral, Victoria Guerra, Afonso Pimentel, Adriano Luz, Joana Ribeiro, Marcelo Urgeghe, Sandra Faleiro, Carloto Cotta, Maria João Pinho, Inês Castel-Branco , Rafael Morais and Leonor Silveira are some of the names that have been disclosed until now.
Netflix recently commissioned its first Saudi Arabian Netflix Original show, Whispers, which is almost ready for release. Before that, it made its first African original show. It is likely the only streaming platform with a finger in almost every country’s entertainment industry pie.
Check out the Synopsis of Glória, as per Netflix:
Synopsis: Glória is a historical spy thriller centered on RARET, the re-broadcasting office of Radio Free Europe. Taking place in Portugal in the sixties, the series shows how Glória, a small village in Ribatejo, became an unlikely Cold War stage where American and Soviet forces fought through dangerous sabotage maneuvers to achieve control of Europe. At the center of this story is João Vidal, a young man from a family with connections in the Portuguese Fascist Regime, who gets recruited by the KGB after becoming politicized in the Colonial War. João will find himself involved in the intricate webs of the spy game, and ultimately understand that whatever side he is on, the world, particularly the one of espionage, is never black and white.
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