Pedro Sánchez appears in a private dining room in Moncloa having breakfast with his wife, Begoña Gómez, while they read the day’s press. At another point, the president sits with her and her parents in a gazebo and chats about her childhood and her birthday – February 29, one every four years. He also goes out to the garden of the presidential palace to walk his dogs. These are just some sequences, the most intimate, that will be seen in the television docuseries that will show the daily life of the Chief Executive, an audiovisual work that began shooting in March and will continue taking images until next spring. Sánchez only set one condition when he accepted that the cameras enter to record for a year: that his daughters not appear on camera.
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The idea of portraying the day-to-day of the President of the Government and the entire machinery of Moncloa – a complex in which more than two thousand people work – was born from the production companies Secuoya Studios and The Pool. There was a meeting with Sánchez’s chief of staff, Óscar López, and another with Sánchez himself.
“It’s a documentary about Moncloa and its workers. Sánchez is one more in this choral story and we didn’t want to put the weight of the story on him. We talked to waiters, chefs, ushers… some of them have been there their whole lives,” says Curro Sánchez Varela, director of the docuseries, who defends the “freedom” with which he is working. “There is no decision to control the content on their part. From the beginning there was a clear agreement: we had to have creative freedom and if we have any technical questions, we ask them. But in no case is it because they want to supervise, propose or remove things “, Explain. Regarding the treatment with Sánchez, he “has been close, affable, polite and respectful.” “The president has tables and has worked a lot with the media,” he says.
Indeed, not only Sánchez comes out. In the first images that those responsible for the production have shared with the media, you can see the president’s political team – Óscar López at the head, but also other advisers – preparing meetings with other leaders, the NATO summit in Madrid -they recorded close to Biden – or the intense European debate in Brussels. For fans of costumbrismo, you can also see the breakfast that the ministers share before meeting every Tuesday and how they talk outside the ‘theater’ of the politics of the news. Miquel Iceta appears preparing a coffee and Ione Belarra chats with Bolaños. When they enter the cabinet room, the camera turns off.
Pedro Sánchez’s docuseries, still without a buyer: “Netflix has not bought it, nor has it seen the images”
The docuseries, in which a team of ten people work, has the provisional title The four Seasons and it is scheduled to run until March or April 2023. It will have four episodes, but there is still no buyer for its broadcast. “This is not a commission. We have invested at risk, like other products, seeking international exploitation,” explains Eduardo Escorial, from Secuoya. “And we’re not going to go out and market it until we have a first episode closed.” In this sense, they have not even shown the first images to potential clients. “It is a project that has generated curiosity, but we have not sold it to anyone,” he said. And he has clarified that Netflix is not behind it either, at least for now. “Neither Netflix has bought it, nor has it seen the images, nor has it shown a particular interest. When the first one is finished, we will show it to platforms and channels that have shown curiosity,” he insisted. He has also made it clear that the docuseries “has the vocation to end up on a private channel or a platform.” “The idea is that it does not go to public television for all that it can mean.” In this sense, TVE would be left out. Escorial has indeed confirmed that Beta Film wants to deal with international distribution.
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The other important fact about the docuseries has to do with the broadcast date. And this is when we must remember that 2023 is a year full of elections (autonomous, local and general). Víctor Martín, responsible for The Pool, assures that Moncloa has not made any indication as to whether he is interested in seeing it before the next elections. “They haven’t told us anything. Also, the premiere depends on the marketing.”
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