After the return of democracy in Spain, it remained taboo to talk about the more than a hundred thousand people who disappeared under the Franco regime. That changed in 1994, when on La Palma for the first time a mass grave was opened. In Man of Seed, María Abenia shows how residents of the Canary Island are trying to keep the memory of the missing alive not only by continuing to carry out excavations, but also through music and poetry, and by passing on their stories to future generations.
Only a few islanders still have direct memories of the terror. There are fears that, as the eyewitnesses disappear, the warning signs of dictatorship will become harder to recognize. Persecution continued after the Civil War ended in 1939. Many of the disappearances did not even have a political motive, but were driven by jealousy and greed.
In her film, Abenia shows the pine trees that have grown over the remains of the victims. She lets the names of 50 murdered men and boys flow through the hills, turning the landscape into a silent witness to history and fertile ground for memory.
Stills
