2023-11-06 23:49:16
In 1934, the Catalan teacher Antoni Benaiges was assigned to a school in Bañuelos de Bureba, a town in Burgos where he arrived with an overflowing and contagious enthusiasm. With a modern look at education, Benaiges introduced into his classes an element that was a priori strange for the kids, a printing press. With it he made, together with the students, dozens of booklets on the topics they talked about. Notebooks with what he achieved with the involvement of his students, but also with which he left a mark on his pedagogical work.
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One of those books was about the sea. Benaiges was surprised that most of his students had not seen it, and he encouraged them to make a publication that was printed in his class under the title The sea. Vision of children who have never seen it. There, the girls and boys in the class wrote what they imagined that sea that they did not know would be like. In exchange, their teacher promised them that that summer, 1936, he would take them to his house in Mont-roig del Camp, Tarragona, so they could meet him.
He could never keep his promise. On July 18, the Coup d’état against the Republic took place and just a week later Falangist militias murdered Antoni Benaiges and threw his body into a common grave. They also ordered those publications that he made with his students to be burned, but some were saved. The story of Antoni Benaiges has returned strongly to the cultural and political news this year. In February, a theatrical version named after that booklet, directed by Alberto Conejero and Xavier Bobés, premiered at the Abadía theater.
The play returned to the news a few months ago when the new mayor of Briviesca, from the PP and in power with the support of Vox, canceled – in one of the first measures taken upon arrival – the performance of the play. He argued technical and economic reasons, but its creator, Xavier Bobés, explained in elDiario.es that it was clear that it was an act of “censorship.” “He talks about the teacher from a beautiful place, about the importance of education and freedom. Of the importance of free education, remembering the teacher’s pedagogical legacy. He is a compliment to teaching,” he added. Briviesca is located five kilometers from Bañuelos de Bureba, the town where the teacher taught and was murdered.
Months after that, the film version of Benaiges’ story arrives in theaters in The teacher who promised the sea –which will also be screened on November 8 at the Faculty of Communication of the University of Seville within the Cinema and Education project–. It does so based on the book by Francesc Escribano, and looking at the thread that unites that history with the present, with the graves that have not been opened, the bones that have not been recovered and the memory that has not been restored. At the same time as the story of the teacher, who is interpreted in a splendid and light-filled way by Enric Auquer, there is in parallel that of the granddaughter of one of the teacher’s students who is also searching for the remains of a relative (to whom he gives life Laia Costa).
The film’s director, Patricia Font, explains that they found out about the censorship of the play with “the movie practically finished” and emphasizes that when they filmed they had “no problem filming there.” There was another government then, and in fact the film has “collaboration with the Briviesca City Council.” “We have not encountered that situation. What’s more, this week we do a pass in Briviesca and, for now, nothing has happened,” she adds.
As long as there is pain, as long as there is something to review, films about the Civil War will have to be made, and whoever doesn’t understand it, then they shouldn’t understand it.
Enric Auquer — Actor
The teacher who promised the sea It premiered at Seminci and arrives in theaters after several previous showings where the team is checking the emotion and the number of stories that remain to be unearthed. “People come up to me and tell me their own stories. Those of their grandparents, or parents, or siblings,” says the director who believes that “although there may be a bit of a feeling that a lot has been told about the Civil War, in reality there are not so many stories linked to current events. through Historical Memory”.
He considers that his film is “a way of making the viewer see that what we are telling about in the past has an impact on this present.” “It is not the past, it is our present and will continue to be a current issue as long as there are wounds to heal and, above all, graves to exhume,” he says.
Light to make memory
One of the things that stands out about the film is its commitment to luminosity to portray the years of the past, the arrival of Antoni Benaiges to the town and his teaching work; facing the gloomy and gray present in which his bones remain in a grave. This is helped by Enric Auquer’s interpretation in what he describes as “an absolute will” to provide that light. “I wanted to make a tribute, a tribute to all these teachers and Antoni in particular, because I fell in love with him, and there is this idea that we can all contribute something to the repair. And I have put my body, my talent, my soul, my poetry, my poetry, to reconstruct a man whom they wanted to erase after murdering him. A victim. And I think that today, when there is so much polarization on this issue and like an ideological confrontation over the dead that are in the gutters, through emotion you can empathize,” says the actor.
He doesn’t care that they are accused of making ‘another film about the civil war’. “I don’t care a little, because as long as everything is not repaired, there will always have to be a story about the Civil War. It is necessary. As long as there is pain, as long as there is something to review, they will have to be done, and whoever does not understand it, then they will not understand it. I just find these stories super necessary. It is the story that we continue to deserve, we have to continue reviewing ourselves and we have to continue talking about this. The other day in Valladolid everyone was standing crying. Ten minutes applauding,” he says.
He remembers the conversations with people after the screening and something that Marina Garcés, one of the playwrights of the canceled play, said comes to mind. “In that work there was a reflection on how forgetfulness is transmitted. A question that I think is a perfect summary to answer those who say ‘another Civil War movie’. Well yes, because all these people who knew the dead are dying without passing it on to their grandchildren. And there are dead people who are going to be forgotten, and that is shit, that is disgusting for everyone,” he points out and launches another reflection: “These are not the dead of one part, but rather the dead of all, and there are “We have to take it seriously so that Spain has a little dignity and a little rest.”
All thanks to a character who “was very idealistic”, who believed “in utopia through education and how through it a future, beautiful homeland of free thinkers and good men could be created.” Something in contrast to the times we live in, “with little story of utopia and many harmful stories of horrific dystopias.” “I find something premeditated in that and I see it as horrifying. We should take responsibility for creating more beautiful stories, with a more idealistic idea of the future,” emphasizes Auquer and for a moment it is impossible not to be infected by his enthusiasm. The same one with which that teacher came to a town in Burgos and changed the lives of everyone who crossed his path.
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