Jacobo Delgado, scriptwriter of ‘Cuéntame’, delves into the historical past of the primary feminine law enforcement officials in Spain from a press clipping | Culture | EUROtoday

Jacobo Delgado (Badajoz, 47 years previous) is aware of the right way to inform tales from Spain. Not in useless was he one of many scriptwriters of Tell methe longest collection on this nation—with 23 seasons in 22 years—which tells the story of a household for the reason that final years of the Franco dictatorship. Once the collection is over, the screenwriter and graduate in History has revealed The decide’s daughter (Plaza&Janés), a novel based mostly on the story of the primary girls who joined the police power within the eighties.

The plot got here to him about 10 or 15 years in the past whereas documenting for a brand new season of Tell me set in 1979. “We had read a lot of press from the time and I discovered a clipping of a news story that I had not even considered, when the woman arrives at the National Police,” he says. “The call came out in the BOE in 1978 and one hundred positions were called for policewomen. In 1979 there were already 42 who accepted.” The thought stayed there, saved within the imaginary drawer of attainable novels, films or collection. “I didn’t know very well how to do it. It was a time that I really wanted to tell, which is that of the Transition, and a good character, that of a pioneering policewoman.” The alternative got here when he was contacted by the writer.

Delgado defends that her e book is a couple of rebellious girl, as a result of it takes insurrection and nonconformity to be a pioneer in a spot just like the Spanish police of the Transition, in a Spain that’s nonetheless sexist and conservative. “Matilde Liébana [la protagonista] She is neither a heroine nor a victim, she is simply a person who goes against the current.”

The novel isn’t restricted to the story of those girls. The story begins with a bloody crime in a cinema in Ciudad Lineal, the place a gay man is murdered. “I wanted to claim that the eighties were not only that time of light, color, diversity and openness that Spain actually was. It was also a time of contrast.” The pages speak about discrimination towards sexual range – in 1978 the Social Dangerous Law was repealed, which allowed individuals thought-about harmful reminiscent of homosexuals or beggars to be punished and imprisoned with out having dedicated against the law -, concerning the precariousness and poverty of the time, about growth of heroin.

To doc himself, he reviewed the press of these years past the political information, consulting the tv schedule and the society sheets that gave him the “smell of the time.” He additionally interviewed law enforcement officials from then and now, to raised perceive their world, from the within. “For example, there are a couple of pretty gruesome crime scenarios in the novel that are taken from reality, from a few years after the time of the novel.” He additionally used the names of some actual murderers: “I have left small clues or tributes to my documentation work so that if there is any reader so geek like me from the press, well he realizes it anyway.”

Delgado had solely written one e book earlier than, a prequel to Tell me 10 years in the past. “The possibilities that literature offers you are endless,” he says. In the world of scriptwriting, he explains, not solely do it’s important to bear in mind the writing workforce, but in addition the manufacturing, the cash, whether or not there are exteriors, the extras, and so many different issues. In a novel, alternatively, there’s absolute freedom, whereas the work could be very solitary.

While he wrote the longest collection on Spanish tv, Delgado had different jobs, though he assures that none has had the load of Tell me in his profession: “For me it has an emotional component that is difficult to find, because I trained there as a screenwriter, I made my life there.” Even so, he clarifies that he doesn’t really feel trapped within the collection’ legacy, however fairly appears to be like again and is grateful for what he has realized.

Speech author

One of his most unknown aspects is that of President Pedro Sánchez’s speechwriter, though, he clarifies, he’s half of a bigger workforce and works within the background, exterior the Moncloa, in a grayer and extra secluded space. He got here to the politician’s workforce in 2016, when Sánchez was normal secretary of the PSOE. This component provides expertise to be what we may name a screenwriter of Spanish historical past. “In the end what politicians do is tell us stories that move us, where they themselves are characters.”

And how is the historical past of Spain instructed immediately? What are the speeches and tales that journey by way of the digital and actual world? “I believe that hate is being abused, not only on social networks, but in certain political things. I believe that hate moves people. But if history teaches us anything, it is that hope prevails in the end.” Jacobo says that he’s an optimist and defender of Spanish historical past. “That Transition that I narrate in the book had many defects. But despite everything it has given us the best five decades in our history.”

Books, collection, documentaries, movies concerning the Transition, the Civil War, Francoism. The author believes that there’s cultural materials about these instances, however that it is rather troublesome, alternatively, to write down about what is going on now: “I see that in Spain it is difficult to talk about politics, about politics from within. In the Anglo-Saxon world you will see many series, fictions and films about politics, about a president or a minister. We still lack a little bit of democratic culture to write or narrate about politics.” But, who is aware of, with all the things that Jacobo Delgado has lived, written and seen, perhaps there’s sufficient materials to maintain within the imaginary drawer of concepts and get well it in a couple of years.