La Chaparra, a Movistar Plus+ original documentary series produced in collaboration with En Cero Coma (a Fremantle Spain company), tells the story of three generations of the same family trapped in an abusive sect for 30 years.
At the end of 2025, the Provincial Court of Castellón held a high-profile mass trial against six individuals accused of unlawful association and nine continuous counts of sexual abuse of minors aged between 12 and 17. A few weeks ago, the court issued its ruling, sentencing five of the defendants, members of a pseudo-religious community, to prison terms ranging from three and a half to seven years. The accused belonged to La Chaparra, the sect led by Antonio Garrigós Lucas, known as “Uncle Toni.” All of them have appealed the ruling and, therefore, it is not a final judgment. Until a definitive resolution is reached, those convicted must be considered innocent.
La Chaparra (Yo nací en una secta), the new Movistar Plus+ original documentary series produced in collaboration with En Cero Coma (a Fremantle Spain company) and directed by Elena Molina (Flores para Antonio), premieres on the platform on 30 April. It delves into this harrowing story, which came to public attention in 2022 following a major police operation that led to the imprisonment of its leader, “Uncle Toni,” who was found dead in his cell just a few months later and four years before the trial took place.
La Chaparra places the victims at the center of the narrative: three generations of a family who lived within the sect and recount their story in the first person, marked by deep trauma and emotional transformation. It traces a journey from guilt and innocence, fascination and deception, to an awareness of the violence and humiliation they endured.
Elena Molina, Director, said: “The project drew me in because of how it embodies that deeply human and very contemporary need to find a place to belong and a certainty to believe in as a way to survive uncertainty. Accompanying this family through the difficult process of learning to live again, questioning thirty years of their lives and the people and beliefs that had sustained them, and transforming pain and anger into the courage to share their story so others can learn from it, has been a true privilege. Directing this story allowed me to confront our fragility and how, at times, we can blindly believe in someone, without realizing that others may take advantage of our ‘good faith’ for their own benefit. The greatest challenge was finding a tone that respected that intimacy without becoming anecdotal or sensationalist, seeking a narrative capable of turning their extraordinary and difficult experience into a question that challenges us all, because as the protagonists say, no one is immune to becoming vulnerable to a sect when times get tough.”
Marias Recarte, Creator and Executive Producer, said: “The first time we came into contact with members of a sect was in 2019 when we produced El Palmar de Troya for Movistar Plus+. Since then, we have continued researching these types of organizations in our country. She added: “It has been four years of many conversations with the victims and with experts, trying to understand the full scope of what they were describing and accompanying them through their process. For the victims, putting into words everything they had experienced has been cathartic and part of their therapeutic process. This is a story with many nuances. We faced a major challenge and responsibility, to faithfully convey 30 years and two parallel worlds, the children’s and the adults’, light and darkness, innocence and perversion, and having Elena Molina as director has been a guarantee.”
