The journalist Ana Pastor, between Aitor Gabilondo, on the left, and José Antonio Antón, content director of Atresmedia TV. /
The journalist Ana Pastor and the creator Aitor Gabilondo co-direct the new Atresplayer Premium project about the Spanish monarchy
“How is it possible that in Spain there is not a documentary series about our Royal Family?” journalist Ana Pastor asked herself two years ago when she proposed making the first non-fiction project in our country that would reveal the most recent history of the monarchy Spanish. This is how ‘Los Borbones: una familia real’ was born, a new format directed by the creator Aitor Gabilondo (‘Patria’) and the Atresmedia presenter herself, which premiered last Sunday on the Atresplayer Premium platform and whose first installment is broadcast on open this Tuesday in the ‘prime time’ of La Sexta.
Pastor explains that outside our borders “there was a lot of interest” in a project that would tell the recent history of the Spanish Crown which, unlike the British royal family, has not had its own documentary series despite being one of the oldest monarchies of Europe. The story of the production has been built from unpublished documents, images and testimonies from writers, journalists and people close to the Royal House. The presenter advances that they found some letters from King Alfonso XIII in the archive of the Royal Palace that reveal “how similar the Bourbons are” to each other. “It has marked a trend in surprising similarities, especially between Alfonso XIII and Juan Carlos I, specifically with the relationship they had with women and that the first was prosecuted for charging commissions,” the communicator advances.
In these first six installments that correspond to the first season, ‘The Bourbons: a royal family’ bets on “thematic chapters” that are not in chronological order, where money, the future of the monarchy and the role of the queen are addressed Letizia, who had a “difficult” adaptation at the Palacio de la Zarzuela “because she is the granddaughter of a taxi driver”, according to the co-director of the documentary series. «She has been mistreated according to her environment, also from the press. She is doing a great job on her daughters that will be good for everyone », adds Pastor.
For Aitor Gabilondo, for many years “the Royal Family has been protected” and believes that “the time has come to speak” to “give back that resentment” to the generation of the Transition “who had to trust” in the king emeritus and “He has been tremendously disappointed with him.” “It is a time to make a critical portrait of this family that conditions our lives for all of us. The tone was complicated, I think we have achieved it. Between fellatio and guillotine there is a middle way », he clarifies.
Because, as Gabilondo has recalled, during the last hundred years, the Bourbons “have reigned, have been expelled and are in crisis”: “It is not a fully established monarchy comparable to the United Kingdom. Nor do they help to believe in the institution », he stresses. Pastor, on the other hand, focuses on the self-criticism that the journalistic class must make about the treatment of the Royal House. «There has been a continuous protection and attempt at opacity. A hundred years ago the same thing happened, when Alfonso XIII went to a casino in France in the midst of an economic crisis and at the time it was not counted as later, ”says the presenter of ‘El Objective’.
For this reason, Gabilondo does not see it feasible in the short term to produce a series on the Spanish monarchy similar to the prestigious ‘The Crown’. «Surely not because there would be no budget and it is a bit early. I know there are projects out there, but it is important to put the real story of the Bourbons in the imagination and, from there, when you are familiar with it, make fiction », he explains.
unpublished images
Co-produced by Atresmedia TV, Newtral and Exile Content, in collaboration with Alea Media, ‘Los Borbones: una familia real’ aims to reveal “what the family that reigns in Spain is really like”, from Alfonso XIII to today. In the first chapter, the documentary series shows the image that Juan Carlos I and Sofía convey to public opinion, that of an austere, simple, united and happy family, something that did not correspond to what was happening behind the gates of the Palace of the Zarzuela and that also affected their children
This installment also analyzes the arrival to the throne of the emeritus at the hands of Franco and the confrontations he had with his father, Don Juan, who feels betrayed by his son as he tells in several interviews rescued by the team of the documentary series.
Specifically, the chapter focuses on one of the most tragic moments in the life of Juan Carlos I, who accidentally killed his little brother Alfonso, when they were both 18 and 14 years old, respectively. The series offers unpublished images of the ill-fated Alfonso bathing in the sea on a family vacation and the testimony of Juan Carlos I’s childhood friend, Antonio Eraso. Participating in this first episode, among other interviewees, are the former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the journalists Iñaki Gabilondo, José Antonio Zarzalejos, Fernando Ónega and the expert on the Spanish royal family, Carmen Enríquez, as well as the biographer of Queen Sofía , Pilar Urbano, among other guests.