Tino Casal is set to light up television screens and streaming platforms this holiday season with a premiere that promises plenty of glamour. The documentary series “Tino Casal,” available on Atresplayer starting the 24th, gathers the family, friends, colleagues, and fans of the multifaceted Asturian artist. Through the voices of its creators, testimonials, and an expansive archive of material, director and screenwriter Alfonso Albacete and co-author Antonio Asencio set out to portray him and, in the process, illuminate the Madrid Movida of the 1980s when Tino Casal reigned, explored from every possible angle.
With the three-part series, Albacete and Asencio aim to reveal who Tino Casal was: the one-man orchestra of a Renaissance era. Asencio credits his breakthrough to timeless songs like damned and Eloise, tracks that marked the artist’s career and helped cast a long shadow over many facets of his life. The painter Antonio Villatoro, who rode with him on the day of the fatal car accident at age 41, contributes to the documentary and remembers his friend as one of contemporary art’s greatest talents.
Asencio hints that the series will also explore the less celebrated chapters of Casal’s prolific journey, which spanned singer, composer, producer, painter, graphic designer, and even a period as a producer for the rock collective. archival footage and moving clips from the eighties such as Night is not for me are included to illustrate those decades.
“He carried an extraordinary artistic gift into every room he entered: singer, painter, set designer, and more. Then there is his generosity, his loyalty to friends, and a grounded, approachable nature,” Asencio observes.
The series tracks the evolution of José Celestino Casal, tracing how he reinvented himself to become the iconic Movida figure known as Tino Casal. His influence remains visible in today’s Spanish music landscape, even decades later.
It covers both his musical trajectory and personal life. The production team gained access to materials provided by his sisters Conchita and Maritina, including paintings, costumes, and archival newspaper clippings. The portrait drawn is of a versatile artist born amid Madrid’s Movida, during one of Spain’s most exuberant cultural periods.
“Tino Casal” brings together a wide roster of personalities connected to the singer, whose memories and insights help reconstruct his figure. Among those sharing recollections are Sandra Golpe, Víctor Manuel, Valeria Vegas, Marta Sango, Luis Cobos, Agoney, La Terremoto de Alcorcón, Paco Clavel, Paloma Azna Vampirella, Cristina Rodríguez, Fernandisco, Arturo Paniagua, and Cayetana Guillén Cuervo.
The new documentary series, produced for Atresplayer in collaboration with Atresmedia Televisión La Cometa TV, will be fully available through Atresplayer and its international version outside Spain from the upcoming weekend.
September 22, 1991 marks three decades since Tino Casal’s death in a car accident, and since then there have been several attempts to revisit his genius and his enduring legacy. The origins of Albacete and Asencio’s project tie back to this anniversary, with Asencio noting a renewed interest in Casal’s work and in paying tribute to a figure who helped shape a distinct era and style in music.
For Casal, David Bowie stood as an idol and model, while London represented the city of his dreams. Born in 1950 in Tudela Veguín, near Oviedo, he grew up in an environment that helped forge one of the brightest stars on Spain’s 1980s music scene. By 1963 he joined a rock band, Black Sapphires, and soon after connected with the Asturian group the Archdukes, as the legend began taking shape.