Opening
Ever since 2018, the annual opening event of the Muestra de Cine de Lanzarote has sought to draw attention to places that, for one reason or another, have lost the spotlight they once had or that, by virtue of sheer familiarity, we no longer look at with the attention they deserve. The Mirador del Río, the Janubio salt flats, a jablera in Soo, the Muelle Grande, the Cueva de los Verdes, the Castle of Guanapay and a water cistern in Teseguite remind us that a place is not simply what we see before us: it is also what happened there, the memories it stores and its non-picture-postcard beauty. At this year’s festival, dedicated to small towns and villages, guests will once again board a guagua without knowing where the bus journey will take them. Where are we going? The question asks us to look at the island with fresh eyes, curiosity and uncertainty. The first stop will be the chapel of San Rafael, perched on a hilltop from which a large part of the history of settlements on Lanzarote can be seen. To the east lies Teguise, once the island’s capital; in other directions we can make out the remains of Fiquinineo, buried beneath the volcanic sands, and Zonzamas, associated with life on the island before the conquest. Meanwhile, the old lime kilns recall the role of lime in the construction of houses in Lanzarote. And the chapel itself bears witness to the role of these beautiful religious buildings in the life of so many of the island’s towns and villages.
After observing the many settlements from the hilltop — including Tinajo, Soo, Tao, Tiagua, Muñique and San Bartolomé— the guagua will take guests to the former cinema in Teguise, a building that once provided the town with a place where people could watch films together, as well as screenings organised by the parish. Decades later, it was taken over by Indigo Bucher, who shared with his mother, the renowned artist Heidi Bucher, a passion for the island’s architecture. Though he initially wished to restore the building to its original purpose as a cinema, he ended up turning it into a well-known shop. While the building was given a new function, its owner lovingly preserved the memory of all those who had once sat there in front of a screen for decades.
Small towns and villages come into being in a fuzzy no man’s land between the public and the private. Squares, streets and churches are places where people meet, places to see and be seen. Houses safeguard everything that happens behind closed doors, although there is always a shutter, a window, a net curtain or a conversation that crosses that boundary. The cinema occupied a singular position: it was a public space, like a church or a market, where, under cover of darkness, two people could hold hands, an arm could brush against another, knees could touch or even lips could meet. For the space of a few days, the Muestra de Cine de Lanzarote will bring that old cinema back to life, reminding us that the history of a town is also made up of what was shared in the public eye and what was only possible in the half-light.