The first heat wave of the summer fell right at the beginning of the shooting in Madrid of the series
I don't like to drive
, and the heat of mid-August still finds the filmmaker Borja Cobeaga (San Sebastián, 45 years old) in the same city in full assembly of the project that will premiere this year on TNT.
As if that were not enough, the rise in temperatures has coincided with the move of the scriptwriter of the program
Vaya semanita
and of
Eight Basque surnames
, and director, among other films, of
Fe de ETA members,
to a house in the mountains
.
With a resigned and comical tone, he says that he is living as if he were inside the movie
This house is a ruin .
and feel “backpacker” in the new home while they finish painting.
His ideal plan is a morning movie session —lately a children's movie, with his son—, followed by a meal.
Another great hobby is traveling in a caravan, an “unexpected” passion that he himself did not think he had and that his wife discovered a few years ago.
It was also she who gave him the license plate to learn to drive when he had already turned 40, like the protagonist of the series played by Juan Diego Botto.
Cobeaga's wife, son and caravan are in Galicia, so he resorts to another hobby: drinking wine "without trying to intellectualize it" and without any fondness for
txakolí
.
Ask.
What came before, the caravan or the driving license?
Response.
My wife took me
camping
and I thought she was going to scare me away, anyone who knows me wouldn't find me there, but I loved the ritual of the caravan, of arriving and setting up the table and the awning.
There is wonderful material for a gossip, and a feeling of adventure not at all epic.
Then when we moved out of the center I had to learn to drive.
Q.
Did it cost a lot?
R.
I am very clumsy, I failed, I abandoned it and then I gave classes, but I never wanted to take the exam.
I passed the fourth.
I realized that everyone had a story of when they learned to drive, the driving schools... My first time behind the wheel they took me to the Carlos V roundabout [next to the Atocha station], a
shock
that I have included in the series .
P.
Have you already taken a liking to driving?
R.
I'm scared, so I usually go with a high-end car pushing me and I resisting, I look like an old man driving, but I have scratched the bodywork a lot.
Car park
columns
are like kryptonite to me.
Of course, now I am a better pedestrian, I have rebalanced myself.
The filmmaker Borja Cobeaga, on August 12 at the Gloria Bendita bar in Madrid.Claudio Álvarez
P.
You have been from 2014 until this July at the head of DAMA, the copyright management entity for audiovisual works.
With the platforms do the creators lose or win?
R.
Eight years ago the theme of platforms sounded like something extraterrestrial.
They are multinationals that in many cases do not even have headquarters in Spain, now we are beginning to win, but we have to be vigilant.
Q.
Is there a bubble?
Is the boom over?
R.
Rather there has been a golden age.
Now the platforms are becoming more and more like the most traditional television.
The theme of the series began very sophisticated, but it is assimilated.
That "we will finance your dreams" and the creator comes first has passed and now there is more control and less diversity.
Q.
What do you think of the new audiovisual law?
R.
It is a stab in the back.
If the big operators don't have to associate with independents, it's a “I'll cook it, I'll eat it”.
Q.
Are we living in good times for comedy?
R.
It is always a good time because there is a large audience, but the producers are afraid of failure and that is why they bet on adaptations of successes from other countries.
And you want to succeed or fail, with your own ideas.
P.
Is laughter the best antidote against tension and political violence?
R.
There is amazing material, the politicization of today reminds me of what we lived in the Basque Country when every gesture, even saying good morning, had a charge.
Madrid's nationalism, something I never suspected could happen in this wonderful and disgusting city, would make for a good comedy.
There are also comedies and satires from the most recent past, about the Transition.
Q.
Is laughter dangerous?
R.
Much has been said about the limits of humor and sometimes they accuse you of whitewashing and humanizing history by making jokes, but in the end, comedy always makes its way.
P.
What humor does not make you funny?
R.
I hate stoner humor.
Q.
Does paternity have its grace?
R.
Sometimes I think that my son is a reincarnation of Hitler and that he should make a script called
Mi luchita
.
Q.
What do you miss about San Sebastián when you go to Galicia?
R.
The Galicians are theirs, more than Catalans or Basques.
In Sanxenxo there is a spirit of donostiarra pijería that I recognize and Silgar beach is strolling like La Concha.
Of course, until I went I had never seen domestic staff with caps in the arena.
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