"All youths are alike. It is in maturity when the difference begins, we differentiate ourselves in how we resolve that original uneasiness, in how we approach the crossroads that presents itself to us when we emerge from youth."
It is as if Rafael Chirbes sensed four years before that his novel
Crematorio
was going to end the youth of the Spanish audiovisual sector.
In March 2011, national fiction learned what maturity was and the crossroads has guided it to its current splendor.
TO
Yes
it was how the story of our corruption changed the television model.
It was that year when
Fernando Bovaira
, which had acquired the rights to the 2007 critics award-winning novel, put the project on the table for them.
Jorge
and
Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo
.
They already knew Chirbes, they had read
The long march
and they agreed to lead the project for Canal +.
What they still did not know is that the series that would forever change the panorama in Spain would rest on their shoulders.
"It was people doing the right thing at the right time. We for the personal attachment to the novel and the author, Fernando, for his idea of power and several other complementary interests. That makes the sum of everything so powerful", highlights Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo, who at that time came from the success of
The night of sunflowers.
And, among the interests that converge, an author "without having to defend his commas and periods".
Still from Crematorio with Pepe Sancho and Pau Durà
EM
"The story was fascinating, but it was complicated because there was no plot. The novel delves into the minds of the characters without knowing what they were doing, it is more an interior monologue rather than the narration of actions that Chirbes tried to hide. That is why he sells the rights to the novel and decided to withdraw from the production of the series. He understood that we were going to fill in all the gaps and make a genre plot ", says Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo.
So it was.
Canal + opted at that time to adapt the eight chapters of
Crematorium
as it happened in the first international series that began to arrive in Spain -
The Wire
,
The Sopranos
...- instead of the dominant national 70 minute model.
"Pay television allows you to free yourself from the fight for audiences in
prime time
and advertising within the chapter.
Consumption is more reasonable, 70 minutes seem eternal and yet
you can see four of 50 minutes in a row
", the two brothers point out.
Crematorium is a criminal story very ours, now seen our chronicle of courts
Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo
With this terrain already explored and with the knowledge of the urban world of those who are the children of an architect from the Urban Planning department of the Community of Madrid, the first foundations are laid to delve into "the criminal history" of this country.
"It is a criminal story that is very much our own, now looking at our chronicle of courts, urban crime defines us as development.
Crematorium
is the reference to the landscape that burns souls
What has been our sin to get here? Sin is implicit in our splendor, "explains Alberto.
"What we value in this story is that it does not tell a Neapolitan or New York mafia of guns and violence, it is our Mediterranean mafia, the backstage where the gangsters come to launder money. Our mafia subgenre of corruption is not so showy at the level. violence, but it has a moral point. The coast was a money laundering resort, the gangsters came here and built hotels to launder that money and urban planning took advantage of that, "adds his brother Jorge.
And it is in this context, at the moment in which it is developing that Chirbes illuminates
Crematorium,
the great chronicle on Mediterranean corruption before it was public.
Because in 2007 the
Gürtel case
,
today one of the most mediatic, and in 2011 the information was not even close to the current one.
"Corruption is the same almost everywhere, but Valencia was happening at that time and Chirbes, who lived there, knew it", explain the creators of the series.
As we did not have the documentation of what had happened in
Valencia
, we had
Marbella
and all the inheritance of Jesús Gil
Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo
But in Spain there was already a precedent that will be used by the Sánchez-Cabezudo brothers to articulate the plot of their project:
the
Malaya case
.
"
We had a sorter full of clippings from the
Malaya case
, which was the most popular, but there were also some small mayors who were caught by a subcontractor.
As we did not have the documentation of what had happened in
Valencia
, we had
Marbella
and all the inheritance of Jesús Gil that was the same.
We made a joint dossier for the crumbs that Chirbes had let spin the whole plot and we had to add characters.
For instance,
Manuel Moron
, the councilor for Urbanism,
is Juan Antonio Roca
", explains Jorge, who adds that" today it would be much easier "to develop
Crematorium
.
"Imagine the character of the
money junkie
[Marcos Benavent]
, who first steals and then goes somewhere to meditate, is almost from the Coens.
All these people are already in Chirbes, they are the archetype of the mafia character in our history of corruption, "explains Alberto.
Pepe Sancho, protagonist of the Canal + series
EM
Once the plot is articulated, all that remains is to find a
Ruben Bertomeu
to target the project.
There they meet the Sánchez-Cabezudo brothers
Pepe sancho
.
"When Fernando Bovaira introduced him to me, he told me that he was going to measure me. And so it was. But he was looking for something like that and, when Bertomeu crosses his path, he understands that this is his character and he decided to act as cast leader" remembers Jorge.
"Chirbes wrote a precious thing when Pepe dies and that is that Pepe would always be his Rubén Bertomeu", complements his brother.
Because those were not the best years of Pepe Sancho, an actor accused of having a difficult character and involved in the accusations of mistreatment of his ex-wife, the singer María Jiménez, a few years earlier.
"On a personal level I was already with
Reyes Monforte
That gave him immense peace and everyone told us that he was another Pepe.
He coincided that he was on a different wavelength and it was a great luxury because he was a tremendously intelligent guy, he understood everything and knew Valencia like nobody else because he lived there ", the creators of
Crematorium.
And, with all those wickers, the considered great cult series in Spain is built, which would lay the first stone for the current panorama.
"People perceive it of comparable quality to the outside, but still very much their own. If it had had another theme, maybe it would have worked the same, but the fact that its history is very Spanish gives it that point", conclude the Sánchez-Cabezudo brothers.
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