The Norwegian series Power Play, crowned in Cannes, arrives in Cádiz with its amusing political proposal.
The series
Beguines
produced by Antena 3 and starring Amaia Aberasturi and Yon González, has had the premiere of its first episode at South, which will soon be shown on the channel’s prime time. Emilio Sánchez, director of Atresplayer; Montse García, director of fiction at Atresmedia TV; Rómulo Aguillaume, co-director of BeguinasSonia Martínez, editorial director of Buendía Estudios and Amparo Miralles, executive producer, accompanied part of the cast for the presentation. Yon González, Amaia Aberasturi, Melanie Olivares, Bea Segura and Ella Kweku are part of Beguinas, “a period drama, a women’s story that recreates the life of the Beguinatos, a community of free women”, as Montse García said.
Beguinas is inspired by the Beguinates, communities of women who, since the 13th century, defended an alternative way of life independent of marriage and the Church. The Beguines dedicated themselves to contemplation, but also to action, through crafts, teaching or caring for the sick, which brought benefits to society while allowing them to be self-sufficient. The Beguinates were spaces for relationships and freedom that, despite having popular support, were highly questioned by the authorities.
“A story that starts from a very original and local point, but that deals with a universal theme”, according to Emilio Sánchez. For Sonia Martínez, “a period series always costs more, more is asked of it in everything related to visuals, makeup or art”. Romulo Aguillaume, co-director of
Beguinas,
wanted to highlight the contemporaneity of the series: “Now that there is so much talk about feminism and sorority,
Beguinas
is introduced in the origins”. Melanie Olivares has highlighted “the freedom of these women”; while Ella Kweku has explained that this character has given her the opportunity to “empathize with the difficulty of a woman in this era, especially a black woman”.
This was followed by the presentation to the media of ‘Power Play’, a Norwegian political comedy production centered on the figure of Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway on three occasions. Although, as stated by one of the three creators of the series, Kristin Grue, the series has not yet been released in Norway, in it “everything you see is real, it’s footage from real archives and that’s what we were looking for with this series. We have done a lot of research and talked to a lot of people. What is clear to us from the beginning is that everyone has their own point of view on history, they remember it in a different way. So we found this space of truth, lies and bad memory to be a perfect environment to be able to tell what we want to tell”.
This political comedy has arrived in Cádiz after its success at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Series and Best Musical Composition. Produced by Motlys/ Novemberfilm – a Fremantle Label, tells the story of Gro Harlem Brundtland, a young doctor and pro-choice activist who, almost by accident, is drawn into politics, eventually becoming Prime Minister in 1981.
Producer Camilla Brusdal has also explained that “at first our plan was not to make a comedy or anything funny but when we did some research we realized that funny things did happen like eating waffles at meetings or leaking things to the press. We thought that was a good way to approach it. At the beginning we had the weight on our back of wanting to do something serious because it was our country, but when we added the comedic angle to it that weight was lifted and we just thought about having fun. It’s our point of view on how we think things happened, we’re not saying we’re right, it’s our perspective”.
The main actress, Kathrine Thorborg Johansen, pointed out that “the labor party in our country is losing votes and has been losing votes for a long time. I think the series can raise the question of why it has been like this, what is happening with social democracy in our country and in other countries. Because it is a generalized phenomenon that left-wing parties are losing votes all over the world. It is not a comedy, it goes beyond that, it has an anarchist point of view. This comedy is not made to laugh, but to laugh and think and be more conscious”.
South International Series Festival is a private initiative sponsored by the Consejería de Turismo, Cultura y Deporte de la Junta de Andalucía, co-financed with European funds, Ayuntamiento de Cádiz, Diputación de Cádiz, and the participation of Mediaset España as main media sponsor. Also collaborating in this first edition are Movistar Plus+, Spain Film Commission, Fundación SGAE, Fundación Bancaria Unicaja and Canal Sur.
