When we think about Netflix, HBO, TV series and film premieres, we imagine photocalls with attractive and famous actors, actresses and directors posing in front of the eager flashbulbs of the press. But behind the fame, behind every story, there is an idea, an opaque creative process written with passion and many hours of typing.
Antonia Gil | Palma
“Without a script there is no film,” says Mallorcan scriptwriter Irene Niubó, who has been working on fiction for TV series and films for the past three years.
“Premieres are always the most eye-catching thing for the public and the media, but it’s not as glamorous as it seems; scriptwriters don’t even get noticed,” she jokes. It seems a truism, but the sector still struggles to make its work visible, which is not valued economically as it should be, she assures. “It makes a living”, outside the Balearic Islands, of course. “Little fiction is created here. For a film script, one can charge between 50,000 and 70,000 euros “if you are not very well known”. The winner of a Goya award can charge up to 200,000 euros. And between 10 and 15 thousand euros per episode for a series, if we are talking about big production companies such as TVE or Netflix.
Irene Niubó soñaba desde niña con contar historias. Foto: Ivo Erasmo.
Niubó was working hard on programmes, IB3 series and documentary series until she made the leap to national fiction. Her first film, which can be seen on Netflix or HBO, was Todos lo hacen (2022), by Hugo Martín Cuervo, which she co-wrote with the Madrid-born, Palma-based Marta Sánchez. “The pandemic helped me a lot. I didn’t have to be in Madrid, we contacted each other by video call”. The same thing has happened to her with Sin instrucciones, directed by the Argentinian Marina Seresesky, produced by Atresmedia and Warner, which will start shooting at the beginning of 2024 and can be seen on Netflix: “We haven’t met the producers in person yet,” laughs the Mallorcan scriptwriter.
In June 2024, another title of her own will be released, ¿Quién es quién?, directed by Martín Cuervo, of Atresmedia, with Kira Miró, Aitor Luna, Carlos Areces and Terelu Campos. She has also written, together with Marta Sánchez, the script for the RTVE series “Las abogadas”, about the Atocha massacre, which has begun filming in October 2023.
For future screenwriters: “It’s a profession that you learn by writing a lot and having little… I wouldn’t say ego, but you can’t fall in love with a sequence that sometimes falls. You can spend a year writing a script for a film. When you see it on screen, it makes you excited but it’s hard sometimes: you doubt whether what has been captured is what you wanted to tell.”
💡 Read this and other topical information in the new edition of the magazine Mallorca Global Mag 2023 – 2024.
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