Directed by Simon West, “Bundles” stars Rodrigo Santoro, Alvaro Morte

Rodrigo Santoro – Hector in “Westworld”, Xerxes in “300” – leaning forward in his chair during a Zoom interview almost touches the screen, such is his excitement. “It’s a very extraordinary feat. What they did, what this guy did. The mission seemed completely impossible.”

Santoro talks about Ferdinand Magellan, who plays him in Prime Video “Boundless,” directed by Simon West (“Con Air,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”), also starring Alvaro Morte, professor at “Money Heist,” and ZDF Studios and the title of the RTVE banner at this year’s Mipcom Show.

West calls the series “Project Passion.” For anyone interested in the Age of Discovery, Magellan’s Round the World Voyage, completed by the Basque Juan Sebastian Elcano, is the voyage of voyages, the greatest achievement in maritime history, wrote the historian

‘Borderless’ (“The Limits of Sin”) is first and foremost, as West insists, the entertainment, here’s a flawless epic, historical adventure for the whole family. Rejecting the Portuguese, Manuel 1, Magellan sailed from Seville in 1519 in the service of the Spanish crown to discover a short route around South America to the Spice Islands, the Indonesian Moluccas, which would allow Spain to wrestle the spice trade from Portugal.

Crises escalate quickly: There is a spy on board, sabotaging the campaign; attacks of the portuguese fleet; stagnation, illness threatening the crew; one ship, Santiago lost in a storm; A brewing rebellion led by the captains of the Spanish campaign. This is only episode 2.

This ongoing epic menace serves the series’ ultimate goal: to underscore the sheer scale of Magellan’s accomplishments and that of Juan Sebastian Elcano, who completed the final stages of the expedition.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean through waters already washed up by European fishermen. After Magellan ventured beyond the Cape of Santa Maria, he charted the non-navigating waters. “We have come to the end of the world,” says flight historian Antonio Pigafetta, when they reach the Cape.

Columbus discovered a new world, but it took years to acknowledge what he found. After Magellan took over, Elcano’s circumnavigation of the globe immediately and for the first time ever revealed the true extent of the Earth. The Magellan-Elcano expedition covered nearly 90,000 kilometers, a distance nearly 15 times the distance Columbus covered on his first voyage, notes Bloundless.

The carefully choreographed “Boundless” combines tumultuous action – a sailor falling from the main mast crashing into the surface with just the camera at Ep. 1 – With an eye-catching patina from the full bright hues of Magellan beaches in Brazil to gray slate all the way to the bottom of Patagonia.

“Boundless” is produced by Miguel Menéndez de Zubillaga (“Loving Pablo”) in co-production with Leo Pearlman and Heather Greenwood at Fullwell 73, London (“One Direction 3D: This is Us”, “Bros: After the Screaming Stops”). It was co-produced by Patrick Fisher and Richard Condall.

This nautical epic debuted on Amazon’s Prime Video on June 10 in Spain and Latin America, then in the UK, US, France and Germany over the summer, ranking #1 on Amazon in Germany and #2 in Brazil, right behind “The Boys”, the season The third, which is powered by Spanish public broadcaster RTVE which deals with global distribution rights with ZDF Studios outside of Prime Video regions.

Talk to Santoro West and Menendez de Zubillaga diverse About “Boundless” in the run-up to the Mipcom arc.

How did “Without Borders” arise?

Menendez de Zubelaga: I have a house in it [Basque Coast] The village of Zarautz and the holiday there. Elcano’s birthplace, Getaria, where there is a statue, is located quite nearby. I couldn’t understand why no one had made a fiction about Magellan and Elcano. I’ve been discovering the idea since 2003, talking to directors for a decade until I realized the story is captivating, but best told in an entertaining form, which is when I thought of Simon.

the West: I’m a huge fan of any shipboard movie of any period. I am actually a descendant of Captain Bligh of Bounty. I have always been fascinated by this world and its history.

Santoro: Two months before the pandemic, I was shooting the Netflix movie “Seven Prisoners” in Brazil when my agent called me: “I read something really interesting. A complex and powerful pioneer man, a big production and from Spain.” Then I read the first version of the script and thought “Cool!”

The series feels like you’ve gone to strike a balance between sheer originality when possible and appealing to a broad audience.

Menendez de Zubellaga: exactly. This was our absolute obsession. rigor in costumes, props, character interpretation, and history, but tells a sentimental though true story in which she sympathizes with and falls in love with opposing characters: Magellan, persistent, brilliant, and always right, or so he thinks; Elkano, a stranger, a great sailor, lives without a hierarchy, although he is forced to evolve.

the West: What was a little unusual about the campaign was that it had a very distinct Spanish/Portuguese line in the middle with five Spanish captains, all distrustful of Magellan, who was from Portugal. The tension was very intense. This was a highly turbulent and violent expedition, with murder, rape, betrayal, vandalism, mutiny, and execution. I really had to pick and choose the highlights, so to speak. However, this great drama was the reason why it makes such a great series.

Your performance, Rodrigo, is often very contained. Magellan, as shown in the series, can be ruthless, suspended, decapitated, shooting members of the expedition to ensure the success of his expedition….

Santoro: During the first year and a half of the pandemic, I was confined to my home with my wife, two children, and Magellan, discovering how complex and conflicting he was. All the descriptions I’ve read portray him as tough, tough – the most obvious characteristic – obsessive and visionary.

But what really drove Magellan?

Santoro: Magellan lost his parents. He was sent to the Portuguese court where he grew up, and served as a page among the nobles, but was not one of them. He fought for the Portuguese crown for eight years in India, helped conquer Malacca, and was wounded in Morocco. But he had never felt recognized by his own king. When he finds a map and takes it to Manuel 1, the King doesn’t even want to see him. This is the scene with which we begin “Without Borders”. I think he was a man who needed to prove his true worth to his “father” the king, to his country and to himself.

One of the crucial creative decisions was to shoot in Spanish and other languages….

the West: It is a drama that takes place all over the world. The usual way in Hollywood would be: everyone speaks English but with a slightly odd accent, depending on where they come from. But Magellan was Portuguese and traveled to Spain. His family had Spanish members. His staff was made up of all kinds of Europeans and even of even further nationalities. I decided I could add originality by portraying everything in the languages ​​the characters actually spoke.

You can also bring originality into your lighting settings….

the West: Almost all interiors were lit with real candles. We had special lenses so quick on the cameras that you feel like you’re in a real place at the time. It could have been darker and dreary after sunset, more mysterious and more interesting to me. DoP Shelley Johnson has done a great deal of research. We had a programmable lighting device that could be instantly changed to where we were meant to be and at any time of the day.

What are the keys to serial making?

Menendez de Zubellaga: First, Simon. His presence showed that we really intended to make the series. then [Spain’s] Amazon President: Ricardo Caponero loved the project. Then the schedule-creating 500th-anniversary program and RTVE, which began in 2019, given the 500th-anniversary decision to support only one major film/television project and the fact that Sur Canal in Andalusia and EiTB in the Basque Country were already on board.

This is one of the biggest soap operas from Spain ever?

Menendez de Zubellaga: Budget is $25 million. It’s the largest standalone production in Spain’s history, a deficit financed by banks that discounted contracts from Amazon and EiTB, everyone.

Did you get up?

Menendez de Zubellaga: Free TV worldwide, after handicaps in Amazon regions – namely Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, UK, US, Latin America and Germany – and all rights outside. As in Northern and Eastern Europe and Asia.