Alvaro Onieva Madrid

Madrid

Updated Sunday, March 17, 2024-9:33 p.m.

  • Interview.

    Eduard Fernández: "Those who are against gays or trans people are against love and cannot call themselves Christians"

There are many national fictions that have touched on the issue of drug trafficking, from

Fariña

to

The Immortal

, including

Operation Black Tide

or

Living Without Permission

.

Now,

Netflix

adds one more,

Iron Hand

, which has its location, the port of Barcelona, ​​and the profession of its protagonists, stevedores, as its differential.

"I knew that world by hearsay. It is

popularly known

that they are a very closed organization,

like a kind of family clan in which it is very difficult to enter and that obviously everything that enters through the port passes through their hands

... That already told me It seemed interesting. The topic of drug trafficking has been touched upon a lot, but this union had not been talked about," recalls

Lluís Quílez

, creator of the series and director of all its episodes, about its conception.

"I started researching the port and what happens there and I realized that there was a very interesting universe where that family that I imagined could live and it gave me the opportunity to talk about the topics that interest me: betrayal

, power anxiety, revenge...

I wanted to film in Barcelona for a long time and all the pieces were falling into place."

At the head of this family of dockworkers with dubious morals is

Joaquín Manchado

, played by

Eduard Fernández

, a guy who, as the title of the series indicates, controls with an iron fist what enters and what leaves the port and who, in addition, has a hook

"I wanted to play a more or less normal man," says the actor.

"He is missing one hand, which is made of iron, but otherwise he could be the neighbor on the fifth floor. He is a man who works in the port and has achieved a certain status. He

is a boss like those in reality

. He is based very freely in one, although then it no longer has anything to do with it. But they are people who exist and are around us. I wanted to throw him on the ground, show that he can be a normal guy. Then you begin to discover the tricks he has and the difficulties he appear and you enter into fiction and there is a lot of violence.

"It is a role-playing game and it consists of not knowing who is the good one, the bad one, who has betrayed and who is hiding the truth"

Jaime Lorente, actor

"There is a milestone in the series, which is the loss of important merchandise, which takes Joaquín to the hospital. That pushes the series to look for who was the culprit," adds

Jaime Lorente

, son-in-law in Manchado's fiction and apparently his right hand.

Along with him, the cast is completed by a list of leading figures in national audiovisual production:

Natalia de Molina

,

Enric Auquer

,

Chino Darín

,

Sergi López

,

Daniel Grao

and

Ana Torrent

, among others.

"It is a series in which family and greed are important. It is a role-playing game and consists of not knowing who is the good one, the bad one, who has betrayed and who is hiding the truth," he says.

The seaport of Barcelona receives

almost 6,000

containers

a day

.

Goods from all over the world that, in a single year, can hide more than 30,000 kilos of cocaine, making Barcelona one of the most important gateways in Europe to the lucrative drug trafficking business.

Manchado, owner of the main terminal of the port of Barcelona, ​​is well aware of this.

In

Iron Hand,

if someone wants to use the port to import illegal cargo, they must have his collaboration and the support of the entire criminal network that has formed around him.

"

It is difficult to access the commercial port of Barcelona; I, who am from there, had never been there,

" explains Fernández, "The context gives weight to the series, the weight of the material itself with all those irons, the cranes... They are kilometers and kilometers of port. When you entered with the car to film, it took about 20 minutes from the moment you entered to the set.

It is almost a city within Barcelona

. For me, it is very exciting to film there."

The winner of three Goya awards used personal anecdotes to compose this stevedore: "I have been a member of the Barceloneta athletic club all my life, which is next to the port, and there are many stevedore or former stevedore who are also members and I found in the sauna. And they are tough.

Their conversations are unreproducible because they would veto you. Risque, most of them

."

All those involved agree that it has been a difficult shoot, with many complex action scenes and night shifts, in addition to the cold and humidity of the port.

"Think that making a series like

Iron Hand

, with eight chapters, is like making four two-hour films in terms of volume. And with the same formal and aesthetic ambition," says Quílez.

"We have done everything. There were very, very brutal sequences.

There are shootings, unloading, a car chase through the center of Barcelona passing by the statue of Columbus, the Ramblas, the Juan de Borbón Paseo Colón promenade

... "We used Barcelona as if it were a set and we did everything."

Now Barcelona has changed a lot, but my father was born in Chinatown, when it was what it was.

"He accompanied the sailors for a peseta to where the whores were."

"Each episode has an action

set piece

that is like the jewel in the crown," describes the director, "In addition, in each chapter, except the first, there are

flashbacks

, so we take a trip, in addition to current Barcelona , for the one from 20 or 40 years ago, depending on the character to whom we are dedicating the chapter".

That trip to the past also awakens memories in

Eduard Fernández

: "In the series we not only see the port, but also the old part. Now Barcelona has changed a lot, but my father was born in Chinatown, when it was what it was.

He He accompanied the sailors for a peseta to where the whores were

."

"The neighborhood was full of people who were dedicated to bad lives in all their aspects: stealing, pickpockets and so on. In fact,

I have never said it, but a part of my family were pickpockets from Chinatown

," recalls

Fernández

.

"You can see that whole world and you can see the port. As a Barcelonan, I like to be able to talk about that part of the city because it is difficult to enter there. It is a privilege to see it, to show the cranes, the control cabins where they decide which ship to unload. .. it's a whole world.

This profession gives you the possibility of discovering things that you had not even thought of and you learn many stories

."