'Missing,' the Basque series that has found its place on Netflix and was filmed twice (in Basque and Spanish).

BarcelonaFor a few weeks now, Netflix has been ranking the top ten most-watched series in the country. MissingIf a viewer clicks to watch the series, they will quickly see the following warning: "Spanish version." The reason for this warning is that it is a Basque production that was filmed twice, once in Basque and once in Spanish. Every Monday, ETB's digital platform, Primeran, broadcasts a new episode of the series in Basque, and on Wednesdays, the same episode is available on Netflix. Users of this streaming service who want to watch Missing (Disagreeable) in Basque will have to wait until October, since the first broadcast window for productions in this language is on Basque public television.

Behind the thriller, which focuses on the investigation into the disappearance of young Jon (Jon Lukas), is the Catalan screenwriter Marta Grau Rafel, co-creator of the fiction with Xabi Zabaleta. "When we want to make a series in Catalan, Basque or Galician we have difficulties because we don't find as much funding as if we made it in Spanish. The platforms are obliged to incorporate some content in regional languages, but they don't make originals directly. Therefore, we have to sell in different windows and develop production strategies," explains Gra.

In the case of Catalan productions, such as Barcelona Appointments, it has often been chosen to dub into Catalan, although there are also some examples of double filming in Catalan and Spanish, such as This is not Sweden. In the case of Missing It was decided to shoot twice to avoid controversies surrounding the filming such as those experienced in Catalonia, but also to be able to offer a product entirely in Spanish that would work on Netflix and, at the same time, be able to take advantage of the tax incentives offered by the Basque Country for productions made in the region (incentives that do not yet exist in Catalonia, as the creator points out). "By doing it this way, we have been able to make a series in Basque with a higher budget and competitive with the rest that are being seen on Netflix," explains Grau, who explains that one of the keys to the project was finding actors who spoke both languages well. Jon Lukas, the actor who plays the missing young man, confessed that he had to make an effort with Basque, since it is not a language he normally speaks (his grandmother spoke to him in Basque, but he has lived part of his life in Palencia and in Catalonia, where his parents still live).

On the technical side, Grau emphasizes that doing a double shoot is not as difficult as it may seem. "Once the set is set up, it doesn't take much time for the actors to go through a scene they already know twice. Time is wasted preparing the equipment, lighting, marking movements... Once you have that, doing two different takes doesn't take twice as long," he explains.

Broadcast weekly

Although Netflix doesn't share viewing data, it does publish the viewer rankings, a tool that helps creators get an idea of how the series is performing. "We've reached number one, which was something no one expected," Grau notes. Contrary to Netflix's usual practice, which tends to release all the episodes of a season at once, Missing It works on a weekly basis. "We had an internal debate about this because, at first, we preferred to have all the episodes at once, because ultimately they add up to many more viewers, since Netflix only counts new viewers. Also, people are very used to binge-watching. Even so, this weekly system has kept the series going for weeks quickly. It's like going back to watching series the way we used to watch them," he reflects.

thriller It's aimed at a young audience, but it also takes into account adult viewers, who were drawn to the investigative plot. "We wanted each episode to have an interesting twist, but we also wanted it to be a character-driven series." Mother of Easttown It was an example that we had a lot on our minds because it grabs you with the plot, but the characters also have many layers," he adds.