Pitchbox Interview: “Videos to Cora” project co-creator, Zebina Guerra, talks to us about its writing process

Published in

Filmarket Hub

7 min readJan 2, 2019

A Madrid TV Pitchbox 2017 Special Mention

We talk to the co-creator of the funny and tender “Videos to Cora”, Zebina Guerra, TV series project which got a Special Mention at Madrid TV Pitchbox 2017. Together with her co-writer, Jorge Júdice, they have developed a series that focuses on a much talked about theme, though from another perspective: millennials.

Brief Synopsis:

Sergio is a millennial from Barcelona; immature and demotivated, his life will give a total spin when one of his exes tells him she’s pregnant with his baby. After the initial shock, Sergio starts to build up an unexpected excitement about this, and will start planning for a future as a father. Nevertheless, his ex plans to move to another country, which will take Sergio to shoot videos of himself talking to his unborn daughter, Cora, so she can meet him, even though she might be far away. However, things will take a bad turn when his ex suffers a spontaneous abortion. After the blow, Sergio will decide to keep on with his plan of filming himself, becoming this his only motivation: to bring Cora to the world.

FMH: We’d like to know a bit more about your trajectory, why did you choose this profession? Where did you study? Where did you start your career?

Z.G: I’ve always loved to invent stories and worlds, to read and write. Though I coursed studies in more conventional fields (I have a degree in Tourism and an MBC masters), when it came the moment of truth, I knew I wanted to dedicate my life to something that I was passionate about, and where I would not be looking at my watch every five minutes, waiting for the day to end so I could go home. When I first decided I wanted to study film, I went for an MA in screenwriting at ESCAC, where I met Jorge (he came from the degree in film directing, also at ESCAC, and wanted to specialize in storytelling). That MA was my entrance to the ESCAC world, where I kept educating myself and where, years after, I teach.

FMH: What other stuff have you worked on? Can you talk to us or show us your most noteworthy work up until now?

Z.G: The CV a screenwriter might have can be very deceiving, as you can spend your whole life writing and, even though you might sell your projects or get paid for writing or collaborating with film directors and producers, those projects might never see the light of day. That’s what happened to me my first years working in this field. We could say I had more experience than what my CV showed.

Fortunately, in 2018 my first novel has been published, “Marital mixed arts for a fugitive) (Reservoir Books. Penguin Random House) and “Mi querida Cofradía” (a Spanish very local comedy about the tradition of Andalusian religious brotherhoods and sisterhoods during Easter religious processions)was released in cinemas, which I co-wrote with its director, Marta Díaz de Lope Díaz, and which won awards at Málaga Film Festival and has been nominated at the Spanish press Feroz Awards. One could say, after a long time, 2018 was the year where my work has started to see the light of day and I’m very thankful for that.

Regarding Jorge, he has been fighting in this industry for quite some time too, for his directing and writing projects, besides from working in the world of advertisement as a director and editor. He has done some short films which have won multiple awards, especially Bus Story, which has accumulated around 120 selections and around 15 different awards.

FMH: Talk to us about the project Videos to Cora. How did you come about with the story? What is it about?

Z.G: The idea came about from Jorge; he wanted to develop a series (originally he thought it out to be a web series), where a boorish millennial decides to be a dad and record videos about his happenings to show to his future daughter, Cora. He wanted it to be a series with a lot of rhythm, very wild, but with a heart, especially appealing to that emotion that derives from an imaginary father-daughter relationship.

In the development process, we were selected to participate at the SGAE (Spanish society of authors and editors) development lab. There we had the chance to mold the stories structure and to create a pilot we are very proud of.

FMH: I like a lot the premise for Videos to Cora, in a way, the pregnancy and posterior abortion of who would’ve been Sergio’s daughter, serves as an excuse for him to start reevaluating his life, isn’t it? What was the process of writing a series like this?

Z.G: Yes, Cora is an excuse to tell the journey of growth Sergio goes through. It allows us to make a generational portrait of millennials: their desires and frustrations, loves and deceptions, their dreams…and the best confidant for that matter, Sergio finds it in his future, imaginary daughter, through the lens. If you think about it, it isn’t far from what we do through stories we upload on Instagram, but instead of dedicating them to a mass of followers, Sergio makes them expressly for an imaginary toddler, who he loves with real love.

The writing process was very fun. The series has a very comical and tender tone. We always tried to run away from repetitive, used formulas, we wanted to innovate, tell things from a fresh and modern perspective, playing even with narrative timings, placing social media as another character of the equation.

FMH: How long have you been working on this project?

Z.G: Jorge had the idea in 2011. In 2016 we rescued it and presented it at the SGAE lab, where we finally got selected. In 2017 we developed it at the lab and in 2018 we started shopping it around and presenting it on different platforms.

FMH: Where does the project stand now? What does it need to further be developed?

Z.G: We are looking for a production company and a platform which will be able to finance the series, so that people can finally watch and enjoy it, as we have enjoyed developing it, which is what it is about, in the end.

FMH: What other themes do you want to explore with this project?

Z.G: In terms of content, we are looking to show a generation with which millennials can really identify with, as we’re also in that age group. Put on the table all that which we have had to go through, since this terrible economic, social, political crisis struck us, just when we were ready to get out there and “conquer the world”. For instance, Jorge ended his studies in 2008, you can imagine what kind of work panorama he encountered. Our generation is having a lot of trouble finding its place, settle down, having economic security, even think about having kids. And the fact that we couldn’t afford it, doesn’t mean we don’t want to have it. We have had to do everything later than our parents; we could say we aren’t Peter Pan types by our own design and conviction (which there will surely be some), we have forcefully become Peter Pan. At my age, my mother had an 11-year-old daughter; in my case, I don’t know if I will be able to be one. And though this whole situation is quite dramatic, we love to talk about it from a very irreverent, comic standpoint, with our heart on our sleeve. And we need to tell this story, the story of the so-called “lost generation”, but we know very well what we want. In that sense, we think this series is for that young audience who will be thankful for having something like this, as it talks directly to them.

FMH: What would you stand out most in the project?

Z.G: I’d say it is a summary of decisions that play in favor of the story: the mixture of tones: irreverent comedy / emotional drama; its frenetic rhythm, very in line with the Youtube language; its free structure, fluctuating from video footage to social media and omniscient cameras, its changing narrative language, playing with jumps in time…I believe in the end the project is innovative on a formal level and is truthful in its core.

FMH: Had you tried to shop it around before getting to know us at Filmarket Hub? How was the experience?

Z.G: We pitched it once at an event ESCAC organized. The story seemed to be liked by everyone who attended, but it finally didn’t go further from that.

FMH: Zebina, at Filmarket Hub, we often find there are not enough women presenting projects as screenwriters/directors, as we’d like to see on our market. What’s your experience, as a woman filmmaker, in the film industry?

Z.G: I think that women creators are going through a good professional moment, as there’s an ever growing demand for projects made by women, benefiting us when trying to find a crack to enter the film industry, which is mainly male-centered. There’s still a lot to do, we are half the population and we are far from that number in this industry.

FMH: What made you submit it to Madrid TV Pitchbox?

Z.G: It seemed like a unique opportunity to show our project amongst big production companies from this industry, which, in the end, are the ones deciding which projects are green-lighted and which aren’t. And we wanted them to see ours!

Pitchbox Interview: “Videos to Cora” project co-creator, Zebina Guerra, talks to us about its writing process

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Written by Alex Barraquer