Canto de emigración

There are more neurons in a human brain than particles in the universe. But if we could put one behind another, the only thing we would see would be a small river. An insignificant river and at the same time infinite. Under the streets of A Coruña there is a river that many have forgotten, but that from time to time overflows claiming what once was its course.

Luzía visits the eight stages of the 'pilgrimage' that the intellectuals Otero Pedrayo, Vicente Risco and Ben-Cho-Shey hiked from Ourense to San Andrés de Teixido in 1927; the story of the journey was published in the book ‘Pelerinaxes I’ (Pilgrimages I). She carries out this journey in order to finish up an audiovisual project about Otero Pedrayo’s book started at the University, together with a colleague who passed away in an accident.

The Way of Saint James, northern Spain, 2016. Two brothers, Oliver, the eldest, and Juan Luis, the youngest, a disabled person in a wheelchair, face the hardest challenge they have found so far on their long road of dirt, stones, rain and cold. Everyone says they will not make it, but, fortunately, they are not alone.

After threatening his ex-partner for years, Marcos M. murders his 11-year-old son with a shovel. A year later a popular jury condemns him for murder, to kill making full use of his faculties, and determines that the crime against the child did not seek anything other than to punish the mother. In the fact on which we base ourselves, violence, harassment, the murder of a child to harm the mother and the death threat that still hangs over the woman concur.

With great expressive freedom, Diana Toucedo transports us to a seaside village in Galicia. We are invited to observe the work of the women who collect shellfish, and hear from their own voices their relationship with their trade, the heritage of matriarchy and their sense of belonging. Sailors at sea complement this genuine and devoted community of workers.

Province of Lugo, Galicia, Spain. A year in the life of A Fonsagrada, a rural region whose inhabitants live both near and far from urban civilization; a praise of the distance that crosses the four seasons of the year, whose inevitable passage transforms both the natural environment and the existence of people, a simple, dignified and peaceful existence.