2023-10-21 07:59:22
“Now I am a psychopath, arrogant, cocky, bastard and dangerous”. Chimo Bayo, perhaps the most iconic DJ in the history of Spain, announces it. The symbol of the Valencian Bakalao Route of the 80s-90s, which has now changed dishes for cameras. He makes his film debut playing the role of a brainless drug trafficker who is, according to what he says in an interview with EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, from the Prensa Ibérica group, the antithesis of the real Chimo Bayo.
“As endearing as I am, right? I have fans up to 2 years old. Well now I have become a dodgy and dangerous gangster who, when you meet him, you don’t know if you are going to come out alive. But in reality I am very happy, because it is the first time in my life that I play a character that is not Chimo Bayo,” explains the Valencian, who is making his debut on the big screen at the age of 62.
He does it with the movie’When the night doesn’t end’ (‘When the night doesn’t end’). A feature film with a 100% Levantine seal. Alicante director, Valencian actors and set in emblematic places of the time, such as the Cabanyal neighborhood or the Spook or Masia nightclubs. It has the support of the Institut Valencià de Cultura and has already been in the official section of several local festivals, such as Alicante and Elche.
The protagonists of the feature film are Sergio Castillo, Roberto Hoyo, Álex Monterde, Álex Peral and Martín Doménech, very young actors who had not been born (or were in diapers) when the famous Bakalao Route was booming. And they play a group of friends from the capital of Turia who enter the so-called ‘Movida Valenciana’ and end up getting into trouble with a criminal called ‘El Holandés’, who plays Chimo Bayo. The only one of the cast of actors who lived through that stage.
Debutants
“My girlfriend is a little fed up with me, because I got really into the role and I ended up going around the house playing ‘The Dutchman’ all the time,” confesses an elated Chimo Bayo. He admits that “I wanted to do the film so much that when they proposed it to me, I I had to report what an actor earns. But then I told them yes, that I was going to do it even if they didn’t pay me, because I really wanted to do it.”
He is not the only one who debuts. Account Martin Domenech that he and Sergio Castillo (who are also roommates) say that they have just finished their drama training and this is their first professional feature film. Very young actors who have had to face elements from other times: “What was most difficult for Sergio was driving the Citröen 2CV of the time. Instead of power steering, it seems to have resisted steering,” he explains to this newspaper.
It will also be the first foray into the world of fiction for the director, Óscar Montón. One of the people who has most documented that Valencia of perpetual celebration. In 2008 he directed the documentary ‘72 Hours…And Valencia was the city’ (2008). Now he dares with this fiction feature film, produced by Eme Eme Producciones and Dacsa Produccions, which has just been presented at the Ocho y Medio bookstore in Madrid.
Cars bursting
“I was amazed that the director’s name was Óscar Montón. “Are we going to win a lot of Oscars? Winning one is enough”“I told him when we started,” hesitates Chimo Bayo, for whom the experience has been so rewarding, that “now I am looking for a manager for future films, because I would like to continue making films.”
The film was shot in emblematic locations in Valencia. Not only in the clubs where the action takes place, but in places like the port of Valencia, where “the Volkswagen Golf GTI the 1987 which I bought for the movie, which takes place in 1986. He lasted until the last scene in the port, when an engine hose burst and a significant amount of smoke arose.“recalls director Óscar Montón. The Citröen 2CV driven by the protagonists also said enough in the last scenes.
The film draws that Valencia of the late 80s and early 90s. One of the main countercultural poles in Europe, in which cities such as Berlin or London were established.. A city that did not sleep, thanks to a legal loophole that allowed them to open at any time of the day or night, as long as they left half an hour to clean the room between the end of one session and the start of another. “I remember being the cleaning staff and personally sweeping the floor of the Spook room to reopen as soon as possible,” Chimo Bayo now remembers.
A movement that in the collective imagination has been linked to a series of clichés (synthetic drugs, pounding electronic music, violence), but which, at the time, was a reference for the European music scene. And a pioneer in incorporating a series of features, such as turning the DJ into the protagonist of the party, or matinee disco sessions in which people, instead of staying up late, got up early to attend.
very professional
Regarding the filming, Chimo Bayo says that he took it so seriously “I didn’t want to know the real names of the protagonists. When we met, the kids started talking to me, getting intimate. And I told them that I just wanted to know the names of their characters, and that we would take videos and photos when we finished filming.”
The protagonists, for their part, have had to make a commendable effort of documentation and mutation to get into a role that, generationally, does not belong to them. They are boys of the Generation Z playing roles Generation or even of ‘boomers’.
“I did not experience the Route because I was born in 1993. But I know it through my father, who also set up a nightclub at that time and explains to me that it was a wonderful time. The Route was demonized, but that cultural movement, with mescaline as a substance and with the main cities looking to Valencia because they were doing things that had not been done before anywhere else, was something unique,” says actor Álex Peral.
Chimo Bayo, for his part, haggles as always. When asked if he recognizes in that film the Valencia that he lived in, or if he knew any ‘Dutch’ like the shady character he plays, he cuts away and says: “I lived the Route, but I don’t remember. “I would get into the booth and, since the headphones were still wired, I wouldn’t let anyone in so they wouldn’t ruin my session.”
The feature film will officially premiere on October 27 in Valencia, but screenings are already scheduled in several cities in the Spanish Levante, such as Castellón, Elche, Gandia, Sagunto or Burjassot. And the presentation is being negotiated in a room in Madrid. Chimo Bayo hasn’t seen her yet. He wants to do it accompanied by his people. Those who have seen her say that, due to her originality and the freshness of this group of debuting actors, she has all the numbers to become the national cinematic sensation of this year.
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