The poster of ‘Once Upon a Time in the Canary Islands’ with the image of the boat taken from below and the solar clarity that dazzles, and illuminates the seabed, anticipate in my opinion the purpose that the film particularly gives off.
I understand that the director is going to tell us enough of a story interwoven from below, in such a way that before we can see it, we have already looked at it and before we can hear it, we have already heard it, because the story is taken from the conscience, from the ‘Wolof’ and from the Canary Islander from below.
Armando Ravelo's film can show us the African orphanhood, the journey to arrive, not to come; the materialization of the search for the parent-child bond, which may not be that of the encounter, the coldness of the African coast, the helplessness of the stars and the opacity of the moon while sailing in the darkness on the precise route and with a course that does not guarantee anchoring.
Regardless of the option chosen by the director, I know that the result will inject us with tons of hunger for hugs, to accompany those who arrive by sea, to warm the cold of the wet night, to serve glasses of fresh water to alleviate the salt ingested during the journey, but also, and possibly greater is its challenge, to convince that human beings arrive on the Canary coasts, not setbacks, because it is exclusively here where we mutate people for problems.
The work done to complete ‘Once Upon a Time in the Canary Islands’ was already defined by Eduardo Galeano: “We are what we do to change what we are."
Many thanks to Armando for his work as a memory activist, propagandist of cultural heritage and instigator of consciences, because it is not enough for him to know, but to have the capacity to provoke changes, to demand a life adjusted to coexistence with the neighborhood within the 8 island buildings, even in complex moments in which we still need to know in order to understand the past, the remote and yesterday's that continues concatenated with Africa from where lives broken by need arrive and continue to fragment in the Canary Islands if we do not take immediate action.
Thank you very much, team of ‘Once Upon a Time in the Canary Islands’, because with this dramatic narrative it brings the opaque reality closer to the heart through the eyes, ears and conscience. It recalls a heritage story and I thank and recognize the art of your work. I congratulate you for exploring stories that make it easier for us to progress as a multicultural, supportive and loving people of the neighborhood, which is helped in its right to trace its own path directing its steps towards where it can develop, where it finds well-being and solid, parallel and healthy relationships because the enrichment is mutual, our heart widens and pumps more.
In several parts of Africa there is Canary memory, and in the areas where we do not have remembrance we write contemporary history, much more valuable, because it allows current people to be protagonists, to write plots and design happy endings, as the director of ‘Once Upon a Time in the Canary Islands’ traces in his scripts, full of reflections and political needs.
Thank you for choosing to narrate solidarity stories, committed to the peoples of the surroundings, because it allows us to live them and star in achievements.
Also, thank you for making visible what is in sight, what we see daily on the coasts. We know that shared pain hurts less and relieves suffering, and cinematographic art is an excellent vehicle for healing.
The pieces of stories so far veiled are manifested in Armando Ravelo's film. It is composed of scenes that nourish us with experiences that are ours and give us courage out of solidarity with the courage and daring of those who, without knowing how to swim and with no more means than a mobile phone and a bottle of water, get on a boat leaving their valuable assets: a family marked by hunger that survives in a country rich in natural resources that exploits other nations and multinationals.
I stand up for those who do not give up in the face of a sea that separates, but that serves to unite, to reach the land of promises and revealing hopes.
Thank you for a new film because we are going to know more about the historical heritage of the Canary Islands. Of all that it contains, and even without having them delineated, I refer to the most valuable, the one that increases when we put it into practice, when we use and abuse it, which is the heritage inherited from solidarity, the one that allows us to retain it in the heart and gives us strength and courage to continue evolving as a cultural community, knowing more about ourselves, living with more memory, adding current events to the past, and future to the present time.
Thank you, team, for adding heritage with beautiful and hard stories, full of teachings that make us vibrate and get up, in this case, before the example of a woman who seeks her parental line.
Nona Perera, General Director of Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands
