Where was Bank Under Siege (Asalto al Banco Central) filmed?
Bank Under Siege (Asalto al Banco Central) filmed across four Spanish cities: Barcelona, Madrid, Segovia, and Guadalajara during October to December 2023.
Production on Bank Under Siege (Asalto al Banco Central) spread across four Spanish cities: Barcelona, Madrid, Segovia, and Guadalajara. Principal photography ran from October to December 2023, with production company Brutal Media selecting locations that could stand in for early-1980s Spain without requiring large-scale digital reconstruction.
Netflix released the five-episode miniseries on November 8, 2024. Director Daniel Calparsoro, who previously directed Netflix’s Sky High, helmed all five episodes from a screenplay by Patxi Amezcua. The series stars Miguel Herran, Maria Pedraza, and Hovik Keuchkerian, three actors who had all previously appeared in La Casa de Papel. The story follows multiple threads: the robbers inside the bank, two journalists (Maider Garmendia, played by Maria Pedraza, and Berni, played by Hovik Keuchkerian) investigating from outside, and the government officials managing the crisis. Calparsoro told Spanish media the show reflects what he described as “very clear democratic parallels” between Spain in 1981 and the present day.
Barcelona: The Primary Setting
Barcelona was both the real site of the 1981 bank siege and the production’s main exterior shooting location. The crew dressed public streets with vintage vehicles and period-correct signage to recreate the city before Spain’s democratic transition was fully secured. For wider shots requiring a 1981 skyline without modern intrusions, the production used visual effects.
The story is set on May 23, 1981, when eleven armed men seized the local branch of the Central Bank of Barcelona and held 263 people inside.
Madrid’s Chamberi District
Madrid’s Chamberi neighborhood provided additional period settings. The district’s 19th-century residential blocks and largely intact street plan, a recurring choice for Spanish period productions, stood in for 1980s urban Spain in sequences set outside Barcelona.
Segovia: A Former Prison and the Teatro Juan Bravo
Segovia provides the most clearly documented out-of-Barcelona filming evidence. The city’s official tourism body confirmed in November 2023 that Brutal Media had filmed at the Carcel Centro de Creacion and the interior of the Teatro Juan Bravo, with principal photography on November 21, 2023. Some of Segovia’s city-center streets were also included in the shoot.
The Teatro Juan Bravo’s interior gave the crew a flexible space that could be redressed to serve multiple distinct settings within a single building. Segovia, a city with Roman-era foundations, has previously hosted productions including El laberinto del fauno (2006).
Guadalajara: The Fuerte de San Francisco
El Espanol reported that the Fuerte de San Francisco, a 19th-century complex near the Glorieta de Bejanque that began as a convent before conversion to a military engineering facility, served as a Guadalajara location for the series.
The Real Events of May 1981
The production is rooted in documented history. On May 23, 1981, eleven hooded men entered the Central Bank of Barcelona at 9:05 AM, fired warning shots to silence the crowd, and trapped 263 people inside. One bank employee was shot in the knee. The standoff lasted 37 hours.
The gunmen identified each other by number to preserve anonymity. They issued demands for the release of military figures convicted for the February 23, 1981 coup attempt, the incident known as 23-F, in which armed Civil Guards occupied Spain’s Congress of Deputies. Prominently named in the demands was Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero of the Guardia Civil, the officer who led the congressional occupation. In the series, Tejero is portrayed by Xavi Lite.
Post-arrest interrogations established that the political demands were entirely fabricated. The robbers’ actual goal was straightforward theft, and their escape plan depended on a tunnel into the city’s sewer system. Police captured nine of the eleven gunmen and killed one. One escaped.
Miguel Herran, who plays ringleader Jose Juan Martinez Gomez (“El Rubio”), told Infobae in November 2024 that he briefly met the real Martinez Gomez during his preparation for the role. Martinez Gomez reportedly told Herran that he had captured his swagger accurately.
The series presents the fabricated demands as framing a criminal operation that exploited the fragility of Spain’s new democracy as cover, rather than a politically motivated action with genuine ideological backing. Lieutenant Colonel Tejero, whose name the robbers borrowed for their pretext, died on February 25, 2026, at age 93, in Alzira, Valencia. His death fell on the same day the Spanish government declassified its archive documents on the 23-F coup.
