The Spanish director of 'The Bookshop' and Netflix-backed 'Elisa & Marcela' will make her small-screen debut with the romantic drama centering on food lovers who meet via a mobile dating app.


Spanish director Isabel Coixet has signed on to write and direct her first TV series, Foodie Love, for HBO Europe.


The eight-part half-hour series will be produced by Coixet’s own Miss Wasabi Films for HBO Europe and begin production this year. Miguel Salvat, Steve Matthews and Antony Root are executive producers for HBO Europe.


The original Spanish series, which will premiere day-and-date across all HBO Europe territories, follows two thirty-somethings who meet through a foodie-lover app and embark on a relationship despite past scars. Over several dates they’ll discover where their tastes overlap and whether their passion for food, and shared distaste for foodie pretension, is enough to spark true love.


Fresh off premiering her new Netflix film, same-sex period romance Elisa & Marcela, in the Berlinale, Coixet described the new project as “the fusion of two of my passions: love stories and food.”


She explained: “Two characters meet, separate and come together again in a unique journey through cafes, bars and restaurants. In this tale of love, the lack of it, doubts and food, two timid beings, strong, at times tormented, at times unconcerned, fight to understand and surrender to each other.

Every single place that appears in the series and everything they eat is real. Their story is fiction. It is nourished by all the places I’ve visited and all the food I’ve tried. And many things I’ve lived.”


Miguel Salvat, commissioning editor of original programming for HBO Espańa, added, “In Foodie Love Isabel Coixet is delving into two worlds she’s passionate about. There’s nothing more universal than this combination of ingredients, to which Isabel brings her personal touch, her incredible subtlety and her unique vision.”


Antony Root, executive vp programming and production at HBO Europe, said: “We’re extremely honored that Isabel is turning her talents to television with us for Foodie Love, a truly original and contemporary series with lots of heart. It’s a fantastic addition to our Spanish slate, which with a mix of genres, top local talent and resonant stories is shaping up to offer something extraordinary and surprising for audiences of all tastes.”


Coixet is the Barcelona-based filmmaker known for intimate, largely female-focused stories set and shot all over the world, including My Life Without Me (Berlin International Film Festival selection), The Secret Life of Words (Venice International Film Festival selection), Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (Cannes International Film Festival selection) and The Bookshop, starring Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy — winner of the Goya award for best film in 2018.


On the eve of her Berlin competition spot last month, she said about why she'd turned down past offers to work in television: "If I do something on TV it will be something I created, and that’s what I’m doing right now."


HBO Europe currently has several original projects in production across its European territories: Patria and 30 Coins in Spain, Gösta in Sweden, Beartown and Beforeigners in Norway, The Sleepers in the Czech Republic, Umbre III in Romania and Wataha III in Poland.