I’m from Galicia, an area in the northwest of Spain that during the late 19th and early 20th centuries was defined by mass emigration. Some Galicians emigrated to more industrialized areas in Spain, others to European countries and others to Latin America. Between 1900 and 1960, there were almost one million Galicians who left their homeland to try their luck on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In countries such as Argentina, still today there’re so many descendants of Galicians that they refer to all Spaniards as gallegos (Galicians).
In the 20s, some organizations based in Galicia started to send ‘film letters’ to the Galician emigrant organizations abroad. This communication was paid for by emigrant groups that felt homesick. The letters consisted mainly of landscapes, cityscapes, and scenes from everyday life. There were also films from the other side of the Atlantic—mainly from Argentina, Cuba, and Uruguay—so the relatives and friends who were still in Galicia could see how life was across the ocean.
This filmic correspondence didn’t exist in other territories where emigration was equally important, such as Italy or Ireland. Maybe it was more related to morriña than to emigration itself. Morriña is a Galician word that means a deep longing or desire, a state of acute nostalgia and melancholia, for someplace in which you lived before and the people you love. Is one of those words that can’t be translated into English. Usually, it’s translated as homesickness, but morriña is more specific and bittersweet.
One of those films that were sent to Latin America is Tramways of A Coruña (1926), the oldest Galician documentary. It was found in the Uruguayan Cinematheque and its authorship and exact date aren’t clear. The film shows scenes from A Coruña, its surroundings, and some nearby towns. It was silent, this digital copy has a soundtrack with traditional Galician music.
Despite what its title might suggest, it’s not really a documentary about tramways. They’re present in some shots and the film is mostly a journey through the territory, but not specifically by tram.
The intertitles are mainly informative, they include descriptions and comments praising Galicia and its inhabitants, but some of them seek an emotional response: “Far from Galicia, all Galicians are sick with homesickness”. It may seem that they were trying to stir up nostalgia, but most of these documentaries seemed commercials for tourists, not nostalgic films for emigrants.
At some points, the intertitles drift towards psychogeographical comments: “Sada, a cheerful village in the outskirts of A Coruña”. I grew up in A Coruña, so these emotional descriptions intermingled with my morriña. I see places I have walked through hundreds of times. I feel places with which I have an intimate relationship, such as the school where I attended between 1982 and 1991.
Is shocking to see that some places haven’t changed since 1926. Other areas are almost unrecognisable. Probably, most of you don’t know A Coruña and you don’t have any specific feelings about Galicia, but I’m sure you can understand homesickness. In any case, this film genre specific to my land—at least as far as I know—has great value in terms of cinema, sociology, anthropology, psychogeography, etc. A film genre that arises from morriña.
Most of these films were lost or are not available online, but if you’re interested there’s another longer one online by José Gil, the first fiction filmmaker from Galicia. This one focuses on Patron Saint Festivals held throughout Galicia—we have many, at least one in each city, town, and village, even today.
A game: PAC-MOM
PAC-MOM by Annina Rüst is a parody of the popular game PAC-MAN. The basic game mechanics are the same, but as you’re a mom instead of a man you have to work more to get the food pellets and avoid the ghosts of the patriarchy, misogyny, racism, ableism, etc. The game is available to play online.
Rüst is an artist-technologist that works mainly with electronics and software-based media art. She often focuses on political issues.
A short film
Uit het rijk der kristallen by J.C. Mol is a scientific film from the 20s. This is a coloured version from that time that uses a system called Dufaycolor—the music is a later addition, obviously. The film shows crystallization processes, which have some characteristics really similar to contemporary generative art.
Today I’m gonna close the newsletter with another psychogeographical excerpt from Galicia. In 2015 I created a podcast about one of the things that I miss the most from A Coruña: the rain. In the area of Galicia where I grew up, it rains about 130 days per year—yeah, not all Spain is sunny. In fact, in Galicia, it rains so much that in our language we have more than one hundred words to refer to different types of rain:
Arroiada, babuña, babuxa, babuxada, ballón, barballeira, barbaña, barbuza, barralla, barrufa, barruñeira, barruza, bátega, borraxeira, breca, cairo, cebra, chaparrada, chaparrazo, chaparrón, choiva, chuvascada, chuvia, chuvisca, cifra, ciobra, dioivo, fralleira, froallo, lapiñeira, marmalla, marmaña, meliada, meluria, mollapitos, mollabobos, mollaparvos, molura, morriña, orballeira, orballo, poalla, poallada, poalleira, torboada, torbón, treboada, trebón, trobón, tronada, xistra, zarampallada, zarapallada, zarracina, zarzallo…
You can hear the podcast on framework radio.
It’s too sunny here, I miss the rain!
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See you next week :)