10, 17, 24, 37, 40, and 43. It’s the combination of numbers that, in one way or another, has haunted hundreds of people for years. The journalist from Ourense Susana López Raña is one of them. He has covered many events on television in the past. More than 10 years ago, when he read in La Voz de Galicia the mysterious investigation into a lottery ticket in A Coruña worth 4.7 million euros and had no owner, he was always aware of the local press and the story stuck in his skin be liable. The lottery ticket had turned up in a local administration, that of San Agustín, and the lottery operator had registered its discovery. But it had been sealed several miles away in another administration, located in a downtown mall and run by a now-retired couple.
When the news broke, more than 300 people claimed ownership of the piece of paper, which carries economic fortune. Now López Raña has the opportunity to tell this story much longer than the duration of a live connection. He is co-director with Noemí Redondo Seeking a Millionaire (Unicorn Content). This documentary mini-series, already available on HBO Max, reconstructs the case through the testimonies of some of the millionaire candidates, as well as Germán Lago, chief inspector of the National Police who investigated the incident, and Alberto Mahía, the local journalist who testified the case know.
In addition to what was originally a true crime, where it is suspected that the lottery ticket may have been stolen rather than lost, the two directors who interviewed Dolores Vázquez years ago to reconstruct the Wanninkhof-Carabantes (2021) case for Netflix staged a entertaining clueo around him. “The national press covered this story upstairs and we found a story that looked like a script but nothing more, it was just an idea.” So we started our own research. We practically started from scratch, calling the law firms in A Coruña one by one, because there is no common reason that all candidates have the ticket, but everyone claims it for themselves,” López Raña told by videoconference in early July. “The more we researched, the more twists and turns we found in the script,” he continues.
The series team selected twenty testimonials from over 300 possible ticket holders. “It was very difficult to persuade her to participate with her testimony. Most of them were worried about what they were going to say and had told very few people around them what was happening to them. But on the other hand, she was excited by the idea of finally being able to listen to someone,” he recalls. Because the story of Millionaire Wanted is also the story of the obsessions and desires that dominate the human mind. Convinced that there was at least a possibility that it was they who dropped the paper with the grand prize in the Coruña administration, where it was found, they have been fighting for a large sum of money for years. The amount including interest is already over six million euros. It will be a judge who decides how this money is to be used. Some of the plaintiffs no longer seek material compensation, only to prove their truth.
Redondo, his partner in directing, also celebrates on screen “the good fortune to find very different profiles among the testimonies”. Housewives, engineers, freelancers, single people and others with families … they speak for themselves. “It gave us the opportunity to tell a richer and more real story. Although it was difficult for us to open their hearts, we found people like each of us. They are obsessed, like when love obsesses you, and that’s why it can happen to anyone. It’s just that they’re excited about the idea that a single ticket can change their lives. When they tell you about their sleepless nights, about the money they spent to prove it was theirs, it’s very hard not to empathize with them,” says the co-director of the documentary series.
The model that serves as the visual and narrative thread in the Millionaire Wanted documentary series. HBO MAX
Thorough police investigation
In three chapters, this production uses models to reconstruct what happened at the time and even develops the detailed police investigation, which included the first and last name of the person who had the ticket. The various layers of this story are also made visible through the image. The model recreates some of the locations in Galicia and Madrid where the events take place, based on an idea by screenwriter Miguel Iglesias. “The idea was to repeatedly connect the story with the concept of gambling and the chance of the lottery,” say those responsible. “The participants are participating in a real-life legal competition and we wanted viewers to be part of the game and bet on their preferred candidate because they like someone better or their testimony is more truthful,” says López Raña. “The visual suggestion gives it a theatricality that also shows that everything is connected in this story,” concludes his partner.
“With Dolores Vázquez and El caso Wanninkhof-Carabantes, we realized that in this type of story, in addition to judicial or police data, it is important to create an emotional context,” comments López Raña. Since the series was announced, new candidates have emerged who claim not only that the ticket is theirs, “but that the documentary series needs to be repeated to capture their testimony,” López Raña says, laughing.
The advantage of telling the story in a non-fiction series is that it is not subject to the time and space constraints of traditional media. “It allows us to develop everything on time without having to focus on the last hour. Not only the story, but also the visual concept. Since the testimonies aren’t actual stories, they’re not that close to the surface. Dolores Vázquez herself would not have spoken to us straight out of prison in the same way that she did many years later. The same thing happens with the people who appear in Millionaire Wanted,” say the directors.
You can follow EL PAÍS TELEVSIÓN on Twitter or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Receive the TV newsletter
All the news from channels and platforms, with interviews, news and analyses, as well as recommendations and criticism from our journalists
REGISTRATION