‘Operation Black Tide’ has just premiered on Prime Video, which has already announced its second season, and is shooting the series ‘Hasta el cielo’ for Netflix
“I love directing and I think that’s where my greatest strength lies,” says Daniel Calparsoro (Barcelona, aged 53). This craftsman of thriller and genre cinema has not been standing still lately. A few weeks ago, ‘Operation Black Tide’ premiered on Prime Video, which is inspired by the real-life adventures of the first narco-submarine intercepted in Europe, a handcrafted semi-submersible made of fiberglass and without GPS that will launch in 2019 Crossed the Atlantic with three tons of cocaine, already preparing a second season. Meanwhile, he is immersed in the film adaptation of ‘Hasta el cielo’, which continues in serial form the film that premiered a few years ago.
-What tempted you out of ‘Operation Black Tide’?
-I was quite impressed with the originality of the drug traffickers in transporting the merchandise, but what struck me most was that they crossed the Atlantic from the Amazon in a fiberglass boat, with no GPS, with a compass, with a very simple motor and a generator. It very much reminded me of the adventure of the Kon-Tiki, the raft used by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl during his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to Polynesia. And that is what fascinated me the most, because in the end it is an adventure that is about the daring of man. There was something really interesting about the story for me, which is three characters who don’t know each other and some of them hate each other, but they have to support each other to move forward, so it’s also a story about friendship.
What is real and what is fiction?
-We mirrored the incident as it happened, but in the characters we took licenses and we didn’t portray the protagonists of the story. We wanted to tell the story of Nando (Álex González), a young man who, despite being the Spanish amateur boxing champion, can no longer prosper. He works as a sworn watchman at a fish auction and helps his grandfather with fishing in Galicia. You want to move forward, but you can’t, no matter how hard you try. I wanted to tell that reality, because there is a social group that cannot move forward.
-And I suppose this has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
The richest have become much richer and the poorest are much poorer. And those of us who used to have some now have half. This is so. But what really interested me in the character was that he isn’t just driven by ambition. It’s not like in ‘The price of power’, someone who wants everything or like in ‘Hasta el cielo’.
Drug trafficking is one of society’s major problems. Why do you think governments aren’t taking steps to legalize them?
-It’s one of the big problems and one of the big companies. In fact, if governments don’t do it, it’s because they’re austerity. The big banks take out money because they are the ones laundering it. And the big banks are the ones that give the parties big credits. There is a very good trilogy by Don Winslow that started with ‘The Power of the Dog’, ‘El Cartel’ and ‘La Frontera’ where it is explained very well. In short, US bank Wells Fargo was fined $22,000 million a few years ago for laundering drug money, a fine it quietly paid because the business it did that year amounted to 629,000 million. And nobody did anything.
Do you miss writing? He hasn’t signed a script in years.
-Yeah, well, it’s relative, because when I work with the writers, we talk about the scripts, the scenes, I mix and they work with me. What I haven’t done in a long time, and I have a project, is just writing. But I like directing and I think that’s where my greatest strength lies. In reality, directing is about having a vision, an idea, a clear concept, but then of course it always depends on the script and the actors and actresses. The human card and engineering team eventually bring things to life.
-Have you paid attention to the new film law? What do you think?
– I think it’s a disaster. It is a pity that for Spanish cinema the investment is about 50 million more or less. It seems ridiculous to me. I think it’s a very neglected sector and the sign of the government doesn’t matter. An industry that generates some 250,000 jobs, many of which are not permanent, is not being cared for.
-Are you afraid that part of these grants will now be distributed over the series?
-It seems dangerous to me because the platforms also pay for the series and own them. What they should be doing is offering tax relief, which they are already doing, but nothing more.
-He doesn’t miss the fact that his titles have been released on blu-ray, such as ‘Asfalto’ or ‘Jump to the void’.
-We should do it. It’s an economic issue. I would, what happens is they are not mine. If I ever get rich, I’ll do them all. I will also make copies in Super 35, as this is the format that lasts the longest.
Source: La Verdad
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