global success and image of modernity to attract tourists
The series ‘Intimacy’ was in the week of its premiere the most watched on Netflix -worldwide- among non-English speaking. Between June 13 and 19 it appeared more than 30 million reproductions and the success has continued in recent days. In addition to having an eminently female cast headed by Itziar Ituño and dealing with a topical topic of rage due to the case of Santi Millán, the Txintxua Films production has had the virtue of offering Bilbao an international showcase to promote itself as a modern and of beautiful architecture, with political dynamics a la ‘Borgen’. It has also brought to Spain and the world a plot in which Basque is used naturally by the protagonists.
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“Impact” is the most repeated word by Xabier Ochandiano, councilor for the PNV in the areas of Economic Development, Commerce and Employment in the royal corporation of Bilbao, who attends this newspaper by phone to analyze the consequences of the series. The mayor, who claims not to know how far success will go and if tourists attracted by the phenomenon will begin to arrive, just as San Juan de Gaztelugatxe has added to its charms having been Rocadragón in ‘Game of Thrones’, stresses that the filming itself has already it led to “a hundred people for a hundred days” working in Bilbao and making the city more dynamic. “With all that that entails,” he emphasizes.
Ochandiano proudly admits that City Hall has thrown itself wide open – literally – for production. The scenes have been shot in the Arab Hall -the most solemn place-, in offices, in administrative offices and outside municipal buildings. The fidelity is total, since Bilbao flags wave, red and white logos with the B of the town and even a portrait of the lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, appears in the background, Identical to the one that all the public positions of the PNV hang in their official offices. The councilor explains that all possible “flexibility” was given to the series and he understands that the very coexistence between the day-to-day of the Municipal Administration, which obviously never stopped in 2021 while the chapters were being recorded, has endowed the series with greater realism. the frames.
The councilman, in any case, refrains from commenting on the story and explains that it must be interpreted exclusively from the licenses of a fiction. However, in recent years Bilbao has also seen a growing prominence, not of a “vice mayor” but of the “deputy mayor”, who, after all, is the same figure. Amaia Arregi, right-hand man of Mayor Juan María Aburto, has had to assume the acting position due to the health problems of the Bilbao councilor. In the Basque Country, however, in democracy there has never been a female mayor in the capitals, neither in Vitoria or Donostia. Of course, from 1969 to 1975 the Francoist Pilar de Careaga was councilor of Bilbao. Coincidence or not, the series also mentions a scandal involving politicians who were vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of time when, in the Basque Country, it was two former mayors from Bilbao, at that time managers of the local hospitals in Basurto and Santa Marina, the best known cases among those who skipped the protocol.
Alfonso Gil, now a senator but during the filming second deputy mayor of Aburto and leader of the socialist part of the government coalition, remembers that as a few days “full of vintage cables” in the corridors and offices. “But he didn’t obstruct us,” he also points out. “The City Council, logically, has very different dynamics,” says Gil about the plot, in which cases of corruption or blackmail are insinuated. And he adds as a ‘spoiler’: “The mayor’s office is very, very different from the one you see”. For the socialist, the key to this series is having put the importance of not violating digital privacy at the forefront and Bilbao has only been a “framework” to tell about it.
Ochandiano stresses that this is not the first success for Bilbao in terms of audiovisual productions. You already predict that it will not be the last. It is something that has been sought “since 2015” with the creation of the so-called Bilbao Bizkaia Film Commission, a public agency shared with the Diputación dedicated ‘ad hoc’ to capturing filming. According to the balance presented for the last full year, 2021, not even the pandemic prevented a record number of filmings from being reached, 161. “The economic impact of this activity reached 13.85 million euros with 1,186 contracts associated with filming in Bilbao and Bizkaia” , it is explained at the time. Regarding ‘Intimacy’, the report of the Film Commission shows that it also passed through the Biscayan towns of Atxondo, Basauri, Derio, Getxo, Gordexola, Gorliz, Ibarrangelu, Leioa (by the Artaza Palace, the second seat of the Basque Presidency), Plentzia, Sopela, Sukarrieta and Zeanuri.
One of the star spots in Bilbao is the old Alhóndiga, now called Azkuna Zentroa. It is there where the protagonist sees on a giant screen the script twist that justifies the series. In those plans she shows the iconic pool located on the roof, a pool that is transparent from below and that can be observed by passers-by. “We are delighted with the result of the projection and with the visibility of the center, as well as the success of the series. It has been a great pleasure to work with the production company Txintxua, as well as with Netflix”, they point out from this socio-cultural venue in the center of the city. This newspaper has not been able to contact Txintxua Films to complete this report.
But why Bilbao and not another city? How do you choose the setting for a series? Councilor Ochandiano believes that, at least in Euskadi, there is no competition with Donostia or other cities to capture blockbusters. “If it is good for Bilbao, it is good for Donostia and vice versa”, he understands. Donostia, in any case, has its own Film Commission. And Vitoria has also worked hard in recent years thanks to the impulse of a saga of novels, ‘The silence of the white city’, which have been turned into films. Belén Rueda, the main character, is the image of the city together with one of the co-stars of ‘Intimacy’, Patricia López Arnaiz from Vitoria.
Daniel Solana, director of Basquetour (Basque Tourism Agency), understands that with “little money” there are “very important returns” if the institutions bet on filming or audiovisual productions. And he not only talks about big international productions, but about programs for Canal Cocina, for example. Not without controversy between the opposition, since the matter reached Parliament, the Minister of Tourism, the socialist Javier Hurtado, even participated in one of the tests of the 2021 RTVE Masterchef final, shot in Hernani, in Chillida-Leku . “When we see a clear tourist return, if we can participate, we participate. With little, the return is very large”, insists Solana. In the Department of him there are productions such as ‘Little Switzerland’, ‘Ane’, ‘Maixabel’ or one still unreleased, ‘Balenciaga’, about the fashion genius from Getaria and who has a Disney + behind.
Solana understands, furthermore, we must not forget that the end of ETA -in October 2011- has made the Basque Country a friendlier destination. “From 2011 to 2019, before the pandemic, the Basque Country clearly launched a very different brand, which was the real Basque brand, a friendly, welcoming, gastronomic brand. Now in Goierri there are many tourists from all over Spain”, he points out about the Gipuzkoan region. In the case of Bilbao, he stresses that, due to the ‘Guggenheim effect’, the city has been transformed and modernized in every way. The museum turns 25 in 2022 and now the institutions of Bizkaia yearn for a new Guggenheim in Urdaibai, Gernika and Murueta, although with some opposition due to its possible environmental impacts in a protected area.
However, a markedly economic element is added to the cultural and tourist plane. The shootings generate resources and the Haciendas collect more taxes if they are done in their jurisdiction. And there are bonus programs to attract producers who do not hide. Iñigo Garmendia, director of the Legal and Fiscal Department of Norgestion, recently gave a talk for the San Sebastian Film Commission on this matter and stresses that competition does not exist between provincial territories – each one has its own regulations – nor between them and Spain. It is a battle on a global scale. “When the big platforms come into the equation, they know what is happening here, in Hungary or in Greece, the tax part is very important to them,” he maintains. Without revealing whether ‘Intimacy’ has accepted the regional regime or not, he points out as a fact that the Tax Agency includes all of Spain as a possible filming location to benefit from its aid, also the communities of Euskadi and Navarra, therefore. In addition, the bonus systems are different in the so-called “common territory” than in the Provincial Treasury, which use the figure of the AIE (Economic Interest Groups). The framework, in any case, is very complex, since “you can be a beneficiary of the Gipuzkoan incentive after having shot 100% in Bilbao”.
“Tourism has come back strong. Possibly people who don’t know the terrace and have discovered it through the series will be able to get closer and enjoy it”, he confides in Azkuna Zentroa about some of the filming scenarios. Neither the Bilbao City Council nor the Basque Government yet have reliable data on the real effect of ‘Intimacy’, but it is supposed to generate interest. “This story couldn’t have had a better setting. That is why here is this tweet of appreciation of Bilbao”, Netflix has written with sixteen photographs of the city -and its surroundings- in an account with 2.7 million followers.