Netflix sets December release for 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' series

Mumbai: One Hundred Years of Solitude, a series based on Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez's literary masterpiece of the same name, will start streaming on Netflix in December.

This marks the first screen adaptation of the landmark novel. Published in 1967, it narrates the multi-generational story of the Buendia family, whose patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia founded the fictitious town of Macondo in Colombia.

The streaming service on Wednesday announced that the series, consisting of two parts of eight episodes each, will debut its first installment on December 11.

Billed as one of the most ambitious audiovisual projects in Latin American history, One Hundred Years of Solitude was filmed entirely in Colombia, with the support of the Nobel laureate's family.

"Married against their parents' wishes, cousins Jose Arcadio Buendía and Ursula Iguaran leave their village behind and embark on a long journey in search of a new home. Accompanied by friends and adventurers, their journey culminates with the founding of a utopian town on the banks of a river of prehistoric stones that they baptize Macondo.

"Several generations of the Buendia lineage will mark the future of this mythical town, tormented by madness, impossible loves, a bloody and absurd war, and the fear of a terrible curse that condemns them, without hope, to one hundred years of solitude," read its official synopsis.

Alex Garcia Lopez and Laura Mora co-directed the project, produced by Colombian production company Dynamo.

Mora said working on the series was a "huge challenge".

"As a filmmaker, and as a Colombian, it has been an honor and a huge challenge to work on a project as complex and that carries as much responsibility as One Hundred Years of Solitude, always striving to understand the difference between the literary and audiovisual languages and to be able to construct images that contain the beauty, poetry and depth of a work that has impacted the entire world," the director said in a statement.

Garcia Lopez said their aim with the series was to stay authentic to the story.

"Directing this project has been both a challenge and an adventure, after all in life, taking risks is necessary to give meaning to what we do. When diving into the adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude, my intention was to create something authentic that carries the stature of an international production, because the story deserves it," added the co-director.

Netflix announced the series adaptation of Marquez's novel in 2019.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the emblematic works of Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. Considered a masterpiece of Spanish-American and universal literature and receiving enormous popular acclaim, it has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into more than 40 languages.