Malaga, the 3rd of March - Spies, Nazis, British and a risky love story set in Huelva in 1940, a city where the conflicts of the Second World War are reproduced on a smaller scale, are the ingredients of the new series of La 1 of RTVE, 'Operación barrio inglés', which has been presented for the first time at the 27th edition of the Festival de Málaga  with part of its cast.

In the discussion, which took place at the  Cine Albéniz after the screening of the first episode, Gonzalo Crespo, showrunner of the series, pointed out that the fiction was born when a friend told him what really happened in Huelva, a city known as the "Spanish Casablanca" during the Second World War.

Likewise, José Pastor, the director of Cinema and Fiction of RTVE, highlighted that one of the strong reasons for which the channel bet on fiction is because 'there are not many period thrillers on television and less that are not centralized'. Most productions are shot in Madrid or Barcelona, so we wanted to bet on decentralization, and what a great opportunity to bet on Huelva and the mines of Ríotinto. In addition, we were very attracted by the level of super production that the project had', he has detailed.

The fiction places the viewer at the beginning of World War II, in which Spain is neutral, but Huelva is a strategic enclave to control the ships of both sides that cross the Strait; in addition, it has an important British colony.

For this reason, the Germans send members of the Secret Service to control what happens in the city, especially in the mines of the province, owned by the British and that provide Great Britain with mineral for weapons and artillery.

Lucía (Aria Bedmar) has just turned 25 and has been hired by an English mining company to work in their offices as a secretary. There she meets the company manager, Peter (Peter Vives), an attractive Englishman with a dark past who drags Lucia into an adventure in which she will be forced to take sides. When you are in the middle of a war, being neutral is not an option.

Bedmar confessed that, at first, when she read the scripts she wondered who Lucía was, and now, after finishing the series, she still doesn't understand her. She is a character with many layers and many twists and turns, she is a wonderful example of having many paths open in life and juggling continuously. ‘At first I felt vertigo and I thought I would not be able to play it, but thanks to the wonderful cast and directors that has the series everything was great,' she said.

For his part, Rubén Cortada, who plays Bedmar's boyfriend in the fiction, said that what he liked most about his character is that 'he is more fragile than he seems. He has to deal with Germans and British, on the one hand, and with his girlfriend on the other'.

During the filming of this eight-episode fiction, which will soon be on the small screen, the actors have faced many difficulties, including the fact that 'almost 90% of the shots were sequences, so it was a very demanding challenge in terms of interpretation', as well as the summer heat in the mines of Riotinto and the floods that occurred in Huelva.