‘La Canción,’ Pepe Coira Fran Arajo, revised Eurovision 1968

From the 1950s, while foreign tourists flocked on their beaches, Spain lobbyed hard to become a member of the European Economic Community and presented himself as a modern country, despite his rule by a mysterious dictator from the 1930s. By 1968, despite the targeted reform, the only part of Europe that was introduced was the Eurovision Song Contest, and that hadn’t even won that.

Often precisely based on historical facts and real figures, “La Canción”, a Movistar Plus+, Buendía Estudios three -part minieries World Premières at this week’s Malaga Film Festival, spread outside Spain by Movistar Plus+ Internacional.

It starts with the outdated dictator Francisco Franco who entrusts Minister Manuel Fraga with the task of winning the Eurovision Song Contest, those representatives of the Spanish Pubcaster TVE.

Incredible for some, they succeed, massile, a flamboyant pro-fidel Castro Spanish singer who has no time for Franco, delivers a powerful performance of “La La La”, who beat Richard’s leader “congratulations” with just one point.

Directed by Alejandro Marín (“Love & Revolution”), airy, fast, retro and cut with soundtrack of songs from the period, says “La Canción” the story, in a fiction series that contains the most important events: the registration of Real Life Artur’s (Alex Brendemühl), OM OM, OUT) to elect; The choice of Joan Manuel Serrat (Marcel Borràs), an icon of Catalan dissidence so symbol of Spanish modernity, to sing it; When Serrat withdraws, the right to sing “La, La, La” in Catalan, the desperate story on Firebrand Massiel (Carolina Yuste), who, despite little time to rehearse, attracts a great performance in the Albert Hall in London.

Wingman van Caps is the protagonist Esteban of the series (Patrick Criado), pigs ignorant about music but powered by the first stubborn ambition of scale poles in the government of Franco.

Produced by Susana Herreras for Movistar Plus+ and Ignacio Morales for Buendía Estudios, but this is a series from Pepe Coira and Fran Aaújo, the maker and co-writer of “Hierro” and makers and writers of “Rapa”, two of the most viewed series in the series series.

In both “hierro” and “rapa” they recorded a genre, the national crime mystery, and tore the control book, as Araújo once said, the murderer halfway through the “Hierro” season 1 and even earlier in “RAPA” season 1 and creating endary characters who are a public investigation are broad -out.

With “La Canción”, a very entertaining drama that is often comical-smumsting events that were just comical, Araújo Out-Duo puts much more on the table, as they explained in an interview in the run-up to the Malaga World Premiere series:

“La Canción” has something of the Spanish cinema of the 60s, the airy light tone and of course aesthetics period. But it is much more a reflection, for example about the historical process. By explaining how Spain came to win the Eurovision Song Contest, you emphasize the role of chance, accident …

Pepe Coira: We didn’t want to reproduce a Spanish comedy from the 60s or to have them in mind as a reference. However, we were very interested in the era and its aesthetics is one of the bases of the series, although not the reason to make it. Although we did not define the series as a comedy, we also thought it had to be loaded with comedy because it is full of real events. We are also talking about an episode with great contradictions, very strange things, and we wanted this mix to talk about Spain without being overly solemn, a series with a certain lightness, but also has everything behind without forgetting which country we were in and his circumstances.

The series also tells about the basic challenge of Spain in 1968: how can it really modernize with a mysterious dictator of the 1930s. It tried to sell the idea of ​​a European style state that supported the new Spanish cinema or sent the Novo Canço’s Joan Manuel Serrat to London as his Eurovision candidate. What happens to Serrat, however, the limits of the reform of Spain….

Fran Araújo: Yes, our intention is to show the 60s as they really were. The Spanish cinema of Marisol sold a false reality of happiness, with nothing dark. The characters of the series are part of the era – the protagonist is starting to scale up the bureaucracy of Franco – but the cinema from the 60s did not say how that bureaucracy worked, police – performance against university protests … The series talks about this moment when we were about freedom, but it was not difficult to know what the political system was free.

This CUSP of freedom is observed in a nice scene between Massiel and Esteban’s girlfriend Lucía in a park in Paris, where Lucía explains that people – her parents, Esteban, Franco – expects she will be a pharmacist, but it is so boring, she says. And Massiel advises her to take control of her life, to be what she wants to be. Here, I feel, you are talking about the impact of dictatorship on the lives of ordinary people, where, for example, Esteban only responds to circumstances….

Araújo: This is exactly what we wanted to talk about. There is another scene between Massiel and Esteban and Lucía where Massiel says: “I know that we live at a difficult moment, but are not being cheated, they don’t control your life, it’s just not true.” At that moment, most people thought they were still doing that, but thought they should start thinking that it might not be true …

Coira: We thought this was a great opportunity to talk about this, without giving history lessons in a series with a lot of pace. But I think this was the reason why we made this series to combine these historical and social issues in a somewhat absurd story. And another aspect is the world of television in Spain, this mix of the sublime and prosaic.

Araújo: Checking TVE, the Public Broadcast Network from Spain, was 50%/50% divided between Falangists and Opus Dei Technocrats, which was exactly the same with the government. It was a kind of microcosm that defined how the political system worked.

And is the series ready?

Araújo: No. We are completed the post production process. We transfer the digital image to 16 mm. It is the first time that this has been done in Spain that we know.

You are one of the most popular Creatives duos in Spain and you make “Hierro” and “Rapa”, two of the most viewed series in Movistar Plus+ History. How do you work in series?

Coira: Fairly informal. “La Canción” was born when we turned ideas for a series and we said, “There is a story here,” and it would not be a crime drama that is very much in our comfort zone, although it allows a huge range of things. “La Canción”, when Push comes, however, is not so different from “Hierro” and “Rapa”: it tries to tell a story, treat viewers with great respect and try to be entertaining.

Araújo: Our obsession when writing is to write from the point of view of the characters. Everything can have humor, emotion, life, without avoiding a genre. But what we do is to build complex characters with whom we hope that spectators want to make a trip with them, spend the number of hours with these people.