The Fortunate Isles

From Viennale

Spanish cinema has long ignored the country’s colonial history. For over a decade, Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón have been working together on 16mm to recover the hidden memory of the Canary Islands. Known as the “Fortunate Isles” since Roman times, they were the place where virtuous souls and heroes found eternal rest. This name was revived by Franco to evoke a glorious imperial past. Today, these islands belong to a country that disregards how they became part of it: conquered in the fifteenth century, their original inhabitants, the Guanches, were annihilated, and the islands repopulated with enslaved people and Castilians, uprooted from poverty only to be abandoned and ignored. Girón and Delgado’s film gives material form to this parched, desolate realm, hence the importance of shooting on film. Fatima has been enslaved by a marquis, himself abandoned on a small island. She is at the centre of a story of exhausting landscapes and small acts of rebellion. What if the only source of water runs dry? Must one choose between freedom and life? Reminiscent of Cuban artist Ana Mendieta, LAS ISLAS AFORTUNADAS is a swelteringly physical film, rooted in a harsh land where water arrives as a gift from the gods—or from heroines. (Gonzalo de Pedro Amatria)