“Now I am a psychopath, arrogant, cocky, bastard and dangerous”. Chimo Bayo, perhaps the most famous DJ in the history of Spain, announces it. The symbol of the Valencian Bakalao route of the 80s and 90s, which today has replaced dishes with cameras. He makes his film debut and plays the role of a mindless drug dealer who, as he says in an interview with EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA from the group Prensa Ibérica, is the opposite of the real Chimo Bayo.
“As lovable as I am, right? I have fans up to 2 years old.” Well, now I’ve become a shady and dangerous gangster that if you meet him you don’t know if you’ll get out alive. But in reality I am very happy because it is the first time in my life that I play a character that is not Chimo Bayo,” explains the Valencian, who makes his debut on the big screen at 62 years old.
He makes it with the film.If the night doesn’t end (“If the night doesn’t end”). A feature film with a 100% Levantine seal. Valencian director, Valencian actors and plays in emblematic places of the time, such as the Cabanyal district or the Spook or Masia nightclubs. It is supported by the Institut Valencià de Cultura and has already been an official part of several local festivals such as Alicante and Elche.
The protagonists of the feature film are Sergio Castillo, Roberto Hoyo, Álex Monterde, Álex Peral and Martín Doménech, very young actors who weren’t yet born (or in diapers) when the famous Bakalao route was booming. And they play a group of friends from the capital Turia who join the so-called “Movida Valenciana” and end up getting into trouble with a criminal called “El Holandés” who plays along Chimo Bayo. The only actor from the cast who experienced this phase.
Debutants
“My girlfriend is a little fed up with me“Because I really fell in love with the role and ended up constantly running around the house playing The Dutchman,” Chimo Bayo admits enthusiastically. I had to report what an actor earns. But then I told them that I would do it even if they didn’t pay me because I really wanted to do it.
He’s not the only one making his debut. Account Martin Domenech that he and Sergio Castillo (who are also roommates) say they just graduated from acting school and this is their first professional feature film. Very young actors who had to deal with elements from other times: “The most difficult thing for Sergio was driving the Citröen 2CV at the time. Instead of power steering, there seems to have been resistance steering,” he explains to this newspaper.
It will also be the first foray into the world of fiction for director Óscar Montón. One of the people who have most documented Valencia’s eternal partying. In 2008 he made the documentary “72 hours… And Valencia was the city (2008). Now he dares to do it with this feature film produced by Eme Eme Producciones and Dacsa Produccions, which has just been presented at the Ocho y Medio bookstore in Madrid.
Cars burst
“I was amazed that the director’s name was Óscar Montón. “Are we going to win a lot of Oscars? Just winning one is enough.”“When we started, I told him,” hesitates Chimo Bayo, for whom the experience was so enriching, “that I am now looking for a manager for future films because I would like to continue making films.”
The film was shot in iconic locations in Valencia. Not just in the clubs where the action takes place, but also in places like the port of Valencia, where “the Volkswagen Golf GTI from 1987 which I bought for the film set in 1986. He stopped in the harbor until the final scene, when an engine hose burst and a significant amount of smoke billowed out.“recalls director Óscar Montón. The Citröen 2CV driven by the protagonists also said enough in the final scenes.
The film traces Valencia in the late 80s and early 90s. One of the most important countercultural poles in Europe, where cities like Berlin and London emerged.. A city that didn’t sleep, thanks to a loophole in the law that allowed them to open at any time of the day or night, as long as they had half an hour between the end of one session and the start of another to clean the room. “I remember being the cleaning staff and personally sweeping the floor of the spook room to reopen it as soon as possible,” Chimo Bayo recalls now.
A movement that was associated in the collective imagination with a series of clichés (synthetic drugs, pounding electronic music, violence) but that represented a reference for the European music scene at the time. And a pioneer in integrating a range of features such as: B. the transformation of the DJ into the protagonist of the party, or matinee disco sessions where people don’t stay up late but get up early to attend.
very professional
Regarding the filming, Chimo Bayo says that he took it so seriously.I didn’t want to know the real names of the protagonists. When we met, the children started talking to me and became intimate. And I told them that I just wanted to know the names of their characters and that we would take videos and photos when we were done filming.
The protagonists, for their part, had to make a commendable effort of documentation and mutation in order to get into a role that is not theirs across generations. They are boys from the Generation Z Play roles generation or even from ‘Boomers.
“I didn’t experience the route because I was born in 2000. But I know from my father, who also founded a nightclub at the time and explains to me that it was a wonderful time. “The route was demonized, but this cultural movement, with mescaline as a substance and with the big cities aligning themselves with Valencia because they were doing things that had never happened anywhere else before, was something unique,” says actor Álex Peral.
For his part, Chimo Bayo is haggling as usual. When asked if he recognizes in this film the Valencia where he lived or if he knew a “Dutchman” like the shady character he plays, he replies and leaves: “I lived the route but I can’t remember. “I went into the booth and didn’t let anyone in because the headphones were still wired in so they wouldn’t ruin my session.”
The official premiere of the feature film will take place on October 27th in Valencia, but screenings are already planned in several cities in the Spanish Levant, such as: Castellón, Elche, Gandia, Sagunto or Burjassot. And the presentation is being negotiated in a room in Madrid. Chimo Bayo hasn’t seen her yet. He wants to do it in the company of his people. Those who have seen it believe that it has all the makings of becoming this year’s national box office sensation due to its originality and the freshness of this group of debut actors.
