‘Fake’ alert for neo-Nazis: a Netflix filming in which Luis Tosar looks for his daughter among ultras confuses Madrid residents

A father has just discovered that his daughter belongs to a dangerous neo-Nazi group. What could have brought you there? Worried, he begins a long journey to find out why the young woman has felt attracted to racist, homophobic or violent thoughts. He believes he has given her an education radically opposed to these precepts, so now he will try to rescue her from the clutches of extremism. This is a plausible story and a problem on the agenda of the day – a recent Injuve report alert of radicalization among young Spaniards–, which is why some residents of Madrid raised their voices when they saw posters in their neighborhoods that spoke of “recovering the purity” of Spain or other types of suspicious slogans. But it was a false alarm.

In reality, the father of this story is the actor Luis Tosar (The infiltrator, On the margins) and his daughter, Claudia Salas (Elite, Little pig). The recording of one of the next Netflix news, Saviorhas generated suspicions and some curious eyes have believed that several recognized areas of Madrid had been “taken over by neo-Nazis” and, ultimately, used for propaganda.

In December, a neighbor who passed by the Trinity Palacein the district of Salamanca, was “unpleasantly surprised” when he found posters or flags with anti-immigration speeches or ultra aesthetics. He gave the notice without knowing that it was the props to film a fiction created by screenwriter Aitor Gabilondo and his production company, Alea. “I find it a very worrying and dangerous trend in an emblematic building. These groups appropriate the past,” said this woman, Lola, in statements to Somos Madrid. He did so without knowing that this symbology was born, precisely, from a new series that sought to investigate the dangers and idiosyncrasies of this type of movements.

His astonishment corresponds to that of other passers-by. The Palacio de la Trinidad is a very busy area in Madrid, because as she herself points out, it is a well-connected point. It is a short distance from the metro station in Diego de León, where the circular passes – L6 is the busiest route of all – and also line 5, which connects Alameda de Osuna with Casa de Campo. Furthermore, although the building in question has been in the hands of private owners since 2015, it was public property for decades and many still attribute this ownership to it.

It was not the only location where there was a surprise. Months before, in October, Savior He took his cameras in the heart of Lavapiés. They wanted to try some scenes there, so they set up a stand next to some stands where they could read that their cast was “only for Spaniards.” A clearly anti-racist message that soon spread like wildfire in one of the most multicultural areas of Madrid. The scare lasted a few days, until calm finally returned when it was confirmed that only one series for Netflix.

“They are not neo-Nazis: it is fiction”

The neighbors who noticed these scenarios shared it, at first, in search of some clue as to who could be behind these signs, with conservative or reddish slogans. The same thing happened in the Plaza de la Prosperidad, in Chamartín, where they began filming in January to surprised looks. But Netflix has confirmed that it was all a simple scare. In response to Somos Madrid, the well-known platform for streaming clarifies that the images spread by passers-by correspond to the decoration of their scenes. “They are not neo-Nazis, it is a fictional series,” they point out in the face of confusion.

“We present Savior in a sociocultural context in which many extremist debates that seemed to have been overcome are being revived,” adds the project’s ideologist, Aitor Gabilondo, about the premise of the work. “Luis Tosar embodies the confusion of the reasons that lead many young people to feel attracted to an extreme right-wing group in the face of his own daughter’s drift,” he concludes, settling the controversy.

These kinds of confusions are rare, but not impossible. A much more notorious case occurred in 2021 in Alginet, a town in Valencia, where the Civil Guard itself believed that a recording in the middle of the street was an armed robbery. Madrid is the epicenter of all these setsand increasingly hosts more films or series that use or cut streets to promote fictions. Last year, without going any further, the city has hosted almost 20% more filming than in 2023 according to data from the Madrid Film Office, released this week.

It is a municipal organization designed to promote the capital as a filming set. In 2024 it has processed 11,419 applications, almost 300 more than the previous year. Finally, a total of 41 films, 53 series were recorded – the vast majority of them fiction, although there were five in documentary format – and more than 430 advertisements of different kinds, according to the latest data provided by the Tourism area.