"¿Por qué no te callas?" Making a series about the King
SZS Fest Barcelona 2022

“¿Por qué no te callas?” Making a series about the King

Sections

20 October, 2022 19:00

Javier Olivares (‘El Ministerio del Tiempo’) and Pilar Eyre (‘Yo, el Rey’) share this intimate session on what it means to undertake a project on the controversial (and protected) figure of Juan Carlos I.

Is it possible to make a fictional series about the King? What kind of obstacles can you find along the way? Does censorship still exist? These and other questions will be shared by Javier Olivares (creator of El Ministerio del Tiempo) and Pilar Eyre (author of the book Yo, el Rey) in an intimate and insurgent session on what it means to undertake a TV project about the controversial (and protected) figure of Juan Carlos I.

The overprotection that the Bourbon has received from government institutions and the national press has hidden for decades a life full of scandals and habits of questionable patriotism. But since the monarch ceded the throne to his firstborn Felipe VI, it is increasingly difficult to keep certain secrets. Probably because what you get in exchange for protecting a King is no longer as succulent as what you get from an Emeritus.

Since then, many audiovisual productions have been launched -reports, documentaries, series…- that have taken advantage of this circumstance to shed light on a public trajectory that was opaque like few others. But it has not meant the end of censorship, nor of the obstacles that a scriptwriter or production company may encounter when facing a project of this nature. But what are these difficulties? What (and who) are we facing?

For this session, we will have two people who need no introduction. Pilar Eyre, writer and social chronicle specialist, author of the book Yo, el Rey (published in 2020 by La esfera de los libros), which reveals the most intimate life and the most secret moments of Juan Carlos I with a shocking clarity. And Javier Olivares, screenwriter and creator of such emblematic series as El Ministerio del Tiempo or Isabel. Both will debate, without a moderator in between, on these and other particularities of our free expression.

In the summer of 2021 the news published that Javier Olivares was in the process of adapting Pilar Eyre’s novel to television. The idea was to produce three seasons of between ten and twelve episodes.

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