With the help of its director, its showrunner and one of its protagonists, ttvnews went behind the scenes of this major production, a crime thriller with supernatural elements that brings to life one of the most enigmatic legends of the Chilean idiosyncrasy.
A relentless detective returns to her homeland to investigate the disappearance of a young archaeologist on an enigmatic island.
At first glance, it appears to be the synopsis of a classic crime thriller. But Isla Oculta goes far beyond the crime genre, presenting a science fiction story with unexpected twists and hints of mystery, suspense, paranormal activity and even extraterrestrial life, framed in the impressive backdrop of Chilean Patagonia.
A production by Río Estudios and Filmo Estudios, distributed by Mega Global Entertainment, the original idea for this great Chilean fiction was born from a legend.
“There is an urban legend in the South of Chile, about an island inhabited by beings from another dimension. An island that only a few people have managed to access, being invited by these beings, with whom you connect through shortwave radio frequencies so that they can invite you,” Pablo Díaz del Rio, producer and showrunner of Isla Oculta, began in conversation with ttvnews.
“There is a man who says that he arrived more than 30 years ago with terminal lung cancer, disappeared and reappeared 20 years later, intact, without having aged a day and cured of his illness,” he continued. “That is the legend of Friendship Island, where people appear and disappear, in the Chiloé archipelago, in the South of Chile. And it blew my mind. I really like sailing and I have even tried to find the coordinates of this island, without success. From this legend, we created an imaginary for the series.”
Isla Oculta follows Fabiola García (38), a relentless detective, who returns to her homeland in the enigmatic Chiloé archipelago, after 30 years, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Olga Zuloaga (24), a young Mexican archaeologist. Upon her return, Fabiola relives enigmas and distressing memories, as her twin sister also disappeared in mysterious circumstances when they were children, and this makes her feel the call of something beyond her understanding.
José Luis Zuloaga (56), Olga’s father and renowned journalist, also arrives on the island, convinced that this must be a political kidnapping. However, as they unravel the web of mysteries and secrets surrounding Olga’s disappearance, they discover that this search is not a typical police case.
Fabiola will have to leave her skepticism behind and dive into a parallel universe to figure out if the case has political or police connections, or if it is, against all logic, linked to the elusive and mythical Friendship Island, where, according to hundreds of reports, other disappearances, inexplicable healings and paranormal activity of extraterrestrial origin have occurred.
“As the investigation progresses, paranormal events begin to occur. They begin to prove that this girl was involved with this island,” the showrunner said. “And in the end, without revealing any spoilers, what they discover is a life in another dimension. Not necessarily extraterrestrial, but another frequency, where the characters see the future and see how humanity will be threatened in 30 or 40 years.”
It is in this time jump, when the narrative reaches us in the present time, that the series finds the kick-off for its second installment.
“When Artificial Intelligence and machines begin to control the life of humanity, hyper-connectivity, social networks. And how these machines are going to save us from things that we live through today, global warming, famine, pandemics, wars… But the day we give absolute power to the machines to save us, we will see humanity threatened,” explained the showrunner. “So for the second season there is a cliff-hanger where our characters return to the present time, to 2027 – which is when we hope the second season will be made – with a specific mission: to be the hand that disconnects us from this great engine.”
BEYOND THE CRIME GENRE
To draw up this story, which could have been limited to a crime series based on the investigation of a disappearance, but ended up being a marriage of many genres, the production team had to overcome several challenges, both at the level of development and location, budget and strategy.
“We started with this original idea based on that legend, with a police series. And as we moved forward, in my more creative role as showrunner, I said, ‘We have to take charge of the science fiction that this legend carries, we can’t just leave it as a criminal story.’ And that’s where we started,” explained Díaz del Río. “It’s a project that took about four or five years of development.”
This is where Rodrigo Susarte, director of Isla Oculta, agreed, describing the narrative process as one of the greatest challenges of bringing this story to life.
“The greatest challenge is the story, the ability to narrate,” the director began in dialogue with ttvnews. “How to unite all the areas and converge in a construction of a convincing image, with its own universe. Playing with the genres and articulating an authorship in that. For the creative team and in general, it was the greatest challenge, to generate that authorship.”
The budget, limited to the industry in Chile and Latin America, was another element that influenced how this story was going to be forged, not necessarily in a negative or limiting way, but rather promoting creativity to adapt to the available resources.
“There is something particular about the challenge of generating this genre, of how to tell it,” said Susarte. “We were always very eager and restless with the team and the actors to interpret, reinterpret, and how to make the best production based on the time and possibilities we have as an industry. But precisely that work leads us, in my opinion, to do something more interesting. There was an economy of resources but that perhaps gave you originality, a particular look. There was always a twist, an exercise in the demand of having limited resources that forced us to be able to tell the story in another way.”
“One is used to seeing science fiction series with an impressive display of resources. But we were able to make a series with this particularity, with the strange, the ominous, with narrative and creative strategies that were much more interesting to us,” continued the director.
“The production cost did not fit with what was available on the platforms for this license,” added Díaz del Río on the same point. “We had to work, without damaging the content. Landing certain elements of the most futuristic world to make it happen and doing it with the CNTV fund, the support of MGE, the support of Filmo Estudios and Rio Studios, where we are investing in this content to show it to the market and for them to see that we have a real gem,” he explained.
PATAGONIA, THE CAMERA AND THE ACTORS: THE CHARACTERS OF THE SERIES
And if we are talking about challenges, one of the biggest ones that the Isla Oculta production team faced was, without a doubt, its location, having to travel to Patagonia, and work on nights of cold and rain, to recreate the mysterious context of the famous Friendship Island.
“Friendship Island is in the Chiloé archipelago, south of Chile, where there is no connectivity at all, where Chile is dismembered,” emphasized the showrunner. “Filming there is extremely difficult, because there are no accommodation facilities for a crew, there is no internet. So we went to where Patagonia begins, to the Los Ríos region, a beautiful region full of islands, very similar to what the archipelago is.
“We chose it for its natural beauty and also because we have the support of CORFO (Corporación de Fomento a la Producción), we earned a cash rebate from the region itself,” he added. “I think the landscape is a super protagonist in our series, the rain, the cold, the fog. The series takes place a lot at night, so we worked a lot at night, sailing… a great challenge.”
“They were incredible locations,” Susarte said. “We had a number of locations that each country, each area has a particularity. And you as a creator have to be obsessed with that, find that and show it, not only from the particularity of the landscape, but how to integrate it into the story. That jungle Patagonia, which is unique, was incredible. And it has not been exploited so much in Chilean cinematography. Super attractive, an interesting challenge and an incredible experience.”
In addition to the landscape and the locations, another essential protagonist of any series is, of course, the actors themselves, who gave life to the characters in this story of intrigue and mystery.
“The fundamental thing is always the acting,” the director summed up. “I think that is where the plausibility of what one is constructing is established, beyond whether it is a historical story or not. That was fundamental, the work of directing the actors, of being able to enter into the plausibility, of articulating the characters.”
The choice of the cast was a joint effort by Susarte and Díaz del Rio, together with the casting director. “The three of us were very obsessed with finding the actor, the artist who was ideal for the character,” said Susarte. “I am very interested in theatre, I recently did a play. And I have a fixation with actors, a closeness that is important. The good thing is that there was always something that we were looking for that was similar, we saw the characters in a similar way.”
No one better to talk about the experience of the actors in this series than Daniela Ramirez, the protagonist, who plays detective Fabiola García. “She is a complex character, she is a woman who is alone, she is obsessive, analytical, a lover of her work. But she is also a consequence of everything she has lost and how she has had to concentrate on herself to get ahead,” the actress explained to ttvnews.
“She is a character who suffers a lot from her loneliness, who is not happy being alone. That is what she has been given. Her career makes her feel alive. She is a modern woman for that time, self-sufficient, recognized by her peers. She is a commissioner with a high position, she is one of the people who intelligently deciphers the cases. She is a character who seduced me a lot, super rational. Wanting to find the logic of things, all these events begin to happen in the series that are not verifiable and that disrupt her thinking,” she added.
FROM CHILE TO THE WORLD
Thus, Isla Oculta is presented as a series made in Chile, but with a story that transcends borders and a potential to reach audiences around the world.
“One always wants to put energy and resources into content that we ourselves would like to see on screen. It is so difficult to make fiction from Chile, where one has to be convinced that this is the content that must be made. It is difficult when it is something that one says, it is good, but perhaps I would not watch it. As a producer, I have to think about where I approach it,” said the showrunner.
“And this particular content, this genre, this landscape… everything comes together here. I said, I would watch this content on a screen. And that’s why we also launched with Esperanza Garay, who has been super important at the creative table, contributing ideas, with her perspective that is very welcome because she is in North America. She sees things that I couldn’t perceive.”
“It’s a conflict of all humanity, that runs through us regardless of nationality. That was another important challenge of the project, to get it out of Chile, out of our idiosyncrasy. We have a story that is permeable to everyone, that excites us all,” he concluded.
