The intense smell of malt that permeated the Salamanca district in the 1960s is one of the clearest memories that accompanies the filmmaker Teodoro Ríos. The scent came from the factory his grandfather owned in one of the three buildings he owned in the neighborhood. Teodoro and his brother Santiago, along with his parents, lived in another of the buildings. And it is that the Ríos brothers, as everyone knows the most representative creators of Canarian cinema, were born and enjoyed part of their childhood in a neighborhood in which they continue to maintain firm friendships today, and that, just yesterday, they wanted to accompany them in the photos that can be seen in this report.
If we talk about Canarian cinema, we inevitably have to talk about the Ríos brothers, the same ones who, through their filmography, have been able to capture the idiosyncrasy of a people with works such as Guarapo, which 34 years after its premiere, continues to be projected and attract the gaze of new generations. Without going any further, this September, in Cuba, it was screened at the San Canarias Arts Festival in Cuba, and last Monday it was the TEA that offered a showing of the film. Mambi Y The Flight of the Guirre complete the trilogy that began with Guarapo, in which they talk about the constants of the inhabitants of the islands throughout their history, that is, the need that canaries have had to emigrate to other countries, mainly Cuba and Venezuela, in search of a better life, as they themselves did with their father, the painter Teodoro Ríos, when they emigrated to Cuba.
Their work has been recognized in multiple parts of the Archipelago, especially in Gran Canaria, however, in Tenerife they have not yet received any tribute for a career marked by their desire to recover the memory of the Canary people. But that is going to change thanks to the initiative of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, which has decided to be the first to grant them recognition for their film career, but also to the important contribution that one of them, Teodoro Ríos, made to Santa Cruz, and that it was none other than to found the Association of the Gesta of July 25, whose representation is already a tradition in the capital. In that honors file that is almost finished, they are granted a street in the municipal street map.
How could it be otherwise, the Ríos brothers have immediately thought of the street of their childhood, the one where they were born, play bowling, and the one that still has that number 70 where they were born, and to which they returned after returning from Cuba, and which today is Calle de Los Sueños.
However, being a street that already has a name, they must have the support of its residents. The La Arboleda Association has offered to give them this support, since they share the pride that it would be for the neighborhood to have a street named after the filmmakers, as Domingo Pérez Minik, for example, or the architects Saavedra y Díaz-Llanos, streets that also had a name before proceeding with their change.
DIARIO DE AVISOS has reviewed with Teodoro Ríos what they experienced in a neighborhood where they still have the friends they made in their youth, those who helped them cope with the impact of moving from a country like Cuba, with secular and bilingual schools, television in color and cars everywhere, to a country plunged into a dictatorship full of darkness.
“When we returned from Cuba, my brother at 9 years old and I at 13, we went to my grandparents’ house, at number 70 of what is now Calle Los Sueños, a place where we had a fantastic childhood,” recalls Teodoro. Rivers. And he calls it fantastic despite the “impression” that came from returning to a country like Spain, and particularly the Canary Islands in 1959. “We came from a country that in 1959 was one of the most advanced on the continent, which was the second largest economy in America, after the United States”, he details.
Although in Cuba there was also a dictatorship, that of Fulgencio Batista, the level of corruption was so high, recalls the filmmaker, that anything could be bought, even democracy.
For them to come under the Spanish dictatorship was a shock. “Keep in mind that we went from a secular school to one in which religion was compulsory, where they beat you with special rules, there was physical punishment. Everything was backward, without television, or supermarkets…” he recalls.
It was his friends from the Salamanca neighborhood who helped him and his brother overcome such an abrupt change. “We return to a past that we had left behind. That initially was a shock, but later we started to make thanks to the friends we made in the neighborhood. These friends are still endearing, with whom, to this day, we continue to be friends.”
“I remember how we played bowling alleys in the street, in the potholes we made the gongs, because there were hardly any cars, in Cuba we couldn’t do that. I also remember the girls going down the street singing the songs of the time and the first Christmases, with the Christmas carols, and also our first San Juan festivities”, she recalls.
The Ríos brothers keep the friendships they have made. The same ones that today celebrate that a street in their neighborhood can bear the name of Filmmakers Brothers Ríos.
