In pictures: Costa del Sol transforms itself into Hollywood film set

A stroll through Malaga over the next two weeks promises more than just shop windows and a good atmosphere: there’s also a high probability of coming across a film shoot. Up to three series, both national and international, have booked time and space in the city centre for the filming of their new seasons.

Netflix is once again back with the filming of the second season of the Spanish comedy, Machos Alfa, as well as its new big production venture Kaos, which returns to Malaga to film additional scenes to those already shot last year.

The third series is We Were the Lucky Ones, a series about the holocaust by the American streaming platform Hulu (Disney Group). In addition to the old town, the crews are also in Marbella, where the Hulu series began filming its World War II drama on Monday 15 May.

The first to arrive in the centre of Malaga today Tuesday 16 May is Machos Alfa, the franchise created by siblings Laura and Alberto Caballero (La que se Avecina) for Netflix. In the second season the original characters; the four friends overwhelmed by today's society of empowered women, are back with humour, clichés and controversial topics that explore themes including masculinity, the end of patriarchy, toxic relationships and role reversal under the prism of equality.

The series is in the centre of Malaga and in a beach bar in Pedregalejo, before moving to an exclusive beach club in Marbella on Wednesday 17 May, while on Friday they plan to shoot at night in a mansion on the Costa del Sol. In addition, the schedule also includes a brief stop in Tarifa (Cadiz) to complete the filming in Andalucía.

Next on the filming list is the adaptation of the novel We Were the Lucky Ones, in which the writer Georgia Hunter tells the story of her family during the Second World War and the Jewish Holocaust. This project, produced in Spain by the Malaga-based company Fresco Film for Old 320 Sycamore and the Twentieth Television studio, plans to turn Calle San Juan into a corner of Brazil this Thursday 18 May with the filming of street scenes.

As such, one of the establishments on the central street has been transformed into a bookbinding and leatherwork workshop, as can be read on the striking signs in Portuguese that the series' art team has already painted on the shop's façade.

The series, which like the others, has the support of the Malaga Film Office, arrives in the city after a visit to Marbella on Monday 15 May, where filming began on this ambitious international production which used the famous wooden pontoon of the Marbella Club Hotel for the arrival of a boat to a Brazilian coastal setting.

A number of extras dressed in period costumes and soldiers from the 1940s could be seen strolling around the club as well as Lihi Kornowski (Crimes of the Future) and Logan Lerman (star of the Percy Jackson saga). Although the main character, played by American actor Joey King (Bullet Train), were not present.

This mini-series arrives in the Malaga after filming most of its scenes in Romania to conclude the shooting of this story about a Jewish family from Poland who, after the invasion of their country by the Nazis, faces extermination when they are separated into German ghettos, farms and factories, a fate from which all its members try to escape.

The third series is Kaos, the Netflix series which mixes thriller and Greek mythology is back in Malaga having filmed the second series here. It stars Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park and The Fly), following the departure of Hugh Grant from the project.

All3Media and Brightstar are producing this new title, which has also entrusted the Malaga-based company Fresco Film with this extension of filming, after six months last year when it directed the filming on the Costa del Sol, Seville, Jérez, Valencia and Madrid.

Kaos was the most expensive international production filmed in Spain last year. In Malaga it transformed Calles Carretería, Parra, Paseo del Parque and Alameda de Colón into Greek settings, while for this series the Lagunillas neighbourhood will be one of the locations used in the city, along with other areas of the province.