Bilbao Song was filmed on the empty stage of the Serantes Theatre in Santurtzi, near Bilbao. In static tableaux vivants staged specially for the camera, Friedl’s film captures the process of a phantasmagorical picture production, in this case inspired by Basque history. Those involved in these tableaux included professional actors and special guests, like Julen Madariaga (lawyer, politician, former co-founder of ETA) or the popular clown duo Pirritx and Porrotx.
The starting point was the painting Henry IV and the Spanish Ambassador (1817) by Jean- Auguste-Dominique-Ingres. Other references to Basque history are El Paria Castellano by Juan de Echevarria (1917), El Orden by Gustavo de Maeztu (1918–19), the Tríptico de la Guerra by Aurelio Arteta (1937), and Soldado y Mulata by Víctor Patricio Landaluze, who was born in Bilbao and migrated to Cuba in 1850. The only action that takes place on the stage is the live interpretation of the “Bilbao Song” from Happy End, an unsuccessful musical comedy by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill—a performance with no text, just a local pianist and a woman accordion player.