The aim of the project is to showcase one of the greatest treasures of Spanish popular culture, the traditional tales which have been passed down over the centuries within families, at village gatherings and in local courtyards. A traditional heritage which owes nothing to other neighbouring countries nor to written culture, and which, although it has been handed down to the present day in much weakened form, shaped numerous generations within our collective symbolic universe through individuals, often illiterate (although not ignorant), who were the guardians of an extraordinarily rich but often undervalued trove of folklore.
In pursuing the project Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar and José Luis López Linares covered the length and breadth of Spain to locate and interview some of the last standard-bearers of this intangible social heritage. The documentary brings together some thirty stories told by nine narrators aged between sixty and ninety in their local language or dialect: the Spanish of various regions along with the tongues of Galicia, Biscay, Minorca, Andalusia, Extremadura. The narrators, whose stories are preceded by a brief biography, are: Julia Hernández Rodríguez “Tía Juliana” (Descargamaría, Cáceres, 1922); Consolación Soriano Cariñana (Iniesta, Cuenca, 1939); Juana Rodríguez López (Prioro, León); Ángel Rivas Veiga (Eirexúa, Lugo, 1924); Francisco Castro Salvatierra (Tahivilla, Cádiz, 1927); Esperanza Barber Barber (Es Migjorn Gran, Minorca, 1941); Sito Pelegrí Pons (Es Migjorn Gran, Minorca, 1934); Nicolau Huguet Moll (Es Migjorn Gran, Minorca 1925-2009) and Benigna Lasuen Urkidi (Aulesti, Biscay, 1922).
The 59' documentary features the narrators as well as accounts given by relatives, neighbours, teachers and specialists such as Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar, José María Merino, Joaquín Díaz and José Manuel de Prada-Samper. Thanks to cooperation among researchers and oral narrators we can see how the same stories are found in geographically distant locations.
The project is accompanied by the publication of a book which, in addition to the stories, includes essays by Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar, José María Merino and José Manuel de Prada-Samper, along with an interview with Joaquín Díaz, pioneer in the restoration of Spanish oral tradition.
Première
Cine Estudio, Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid)