Clans It is not the first Spanish series set in Galicia and with a background in drug trafficking. Farina, Live without permission or Operation black tide They already did it before. But the series that Netflix premieres this Friday the 21st tries to differentiate itself through realism. “If you analyze all the series and movies that have been made in Galicia, drug trafficking is probably about 2%. This is like what they say about Spanish cinema and the Civil War. First, drug trafficking is an attractive topic, there is no doubt, and already a subgenre in itself. And then, some of the productions set in drug trafficking are very commercial and very successful. But, in addition, drug trafficking is one of the things that has defined Galicia in the last 30 years, that is a reality. The drug trafficking that exists in Galicia has not existed in Murcia or Cantabria,” says Galician producer Emma Lustres, from the company Vaca Films, responsible for the series.
In Clans, Clara Lago plays Ana, a lawyer who leaves a renowned firm in Madrid to move to Cambados, start from scratch and thus try to understand a part of her father’s life that she did not know about. There she will cross her path with that of Daniel Padín (actor Tamar Novas), son of an important drug trafficker now in prison and who is trying to take over her father’s business. The plot combines the desire for revenge that drives Ana, the budding love relationship between a lawyer and a drug trafficker and, above all, the business of the Padín clan, whose police are hot on their heels.
Created by screenwriter Jorge Guerricaechevarría, the series has its roots in the film Who kills with iron (2019), directed by Paco Plaza and in which Guerricaechevarria also participated in the script and Lustres in the production. It is another story of drug traffickers also set in Cambados. Screenwriter and producer spent a lot of time in this Galician town getting to know the environment and the people. “I was surprised by the type of characters I found, which have nothing to do with what we are used to seeing in a narco series. They were townspeople who were involved in something very, very strange but at the same time they were also collecting clams or growing vines on a piece of land next door,” explains Guerriacaechevarría. “Farina represented a very specific and well-known moment, the nineties and the Operation Nécora. We wanted to come up with something original, different, and at the same time try to make something very realistic,” adds Lustres. A native of O Grove, very close to Cambados, she knows the place well: “It is a rich area, because it is an area of fishing, canning, seafood, tourism, albariño, the heart of the Rías Baixas… and also, the birthplace of of drug trafficking, that too.”
Screenwriter and producer boast about the verisimilitude of the series. “We believe that this story could perfectly be happening in Cambados,” says Lustres. Although both the characters and the plot are fictional, those involved and the stories are inspired by what drug traffickers, former drug traffickers, police officers, prosecutors and lawyers told them. In the seven chapters of the series, events extracted from these testimonies appear, such as the search for a significant amount of money buried in the countryside or a threat that gets out of hand with concrete involved. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I think that Galician drug traffickers will like this series, because they will see themselves reflected,” says Emma Lustres in an interview by video call.
The series shows the peculiarities of Galician drug trafficking, “very genuine, peculiar and particular,” in the words of the Galician producer. They are different criminals from those in foreign series and movies and even different from the Galician drug traffickers of years ago. In the production, as Guerricaechevarría explains, the old-fashioned drug traffickers are reflected, with Padín Sr. as their representative. “Now what they have learned is that you have to go unnoticed,” says the screenwriter. “You don’t buy a mansion, you don’t buy a football team, you don’t show off. You have your money, you look for ways with your lawyers to put it in tax havens… They have learned to hide in that landscape, not be as obvious as before. They are more independent, they don’t have that cult of big bosses. The only thing they can’t help, because it is stronger than them, is that they are crazy about cars,” he adds.
Clans It talks about drug traffickers who make their life in the town and don’t want to leave their roots, or meet up with friends to have a game at the usual bar. “We liked the feeling of making a story about townspeople, where everyone knows each other and knows their secrets, with stories that come from many years ago and where, at the same time, they are involved in this and money comes out of their ears. ”says Guerricaechevarría.
In addition to Cambados, the series filmed in places in Galicia such as Vilanova, Vilagarcía, A Illa, Sanxenxo, A Coruña, Ferrol, Ares and Malpica, and also in Málaga, Gibraltar, Algeciras, Madrid, Oporto and Senegal. According to Lustres, the biggest challenge of filming was recording a chase through the estuaries, for which they used the film as a reference. The boy, by Daniel Monzón. “We wanted to try a boat chase that was very realistic, do it live and make it as spectacular as possible.” The search for spectacularity meant that they had to put verisimilitude aside a little, because these chases are not so common in the estuaries. In order to bring it to the stage, they had to have the collaboration of the Judicial Police, Civil Guard, Customs Police, and Tax Agency to obtain permission to use requisitioned boats and be able to navigate with others built in the estuary.
According to Guerricaechevarría and Lustres, with Galician drug traffickers there is no danger of falling into the glamorization of the characters or the profession, a danger that lurks in any production that has criminals as protagonists. The creator of the series gives an example: “One told us that on a trip to Marbella they went to a nightclub and he saw the Russians with those bottles of champagne with sparklers and he was scandalized: ‘and then they don’t drink them, they leave them there !”. Emma Lustres recognizes that the character played by Tamar Novas is more careful: “he is an attractive guy, not only because of his physique, but also because of what he does and his manner. But there are some who are like that. “I don’t think they were treated like rock stars or heroes.”
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