Wednesday, March 4, 2020

An abandoned Spanish western set


They denounce the state of the informative panels of the Tabernas cinema


Poster in poor condition installed in the Rambla Benavides in Almeria. Photo: Juanen Pérez.

La Voz de Almeria
By Álvaro Hernández
March 1, 2020

The location of a shoot in that land of cinema that is Almeria fulfills, in many cases, the same cycle: it starts with the effusivity that accompanies the announcement of a casting and ends remembering how ephemeral the world is behind the scenes of the seventh art. When the cameras leave, little is beyond the memory.
Beyond specific constructions such as those left behind by “Exodus” or material memories such as those that can be seen in the Casa del Cine of the capital , in the natural set that Almeria supposes only one option remains: visit those places that They have served as a film scene

Back in 2011, the Commonwealth of Peoples of the Interior decided to facilitate this tour through the natural set that is hidden in some corners of the Filabres-Tabernas region.

For this, some information panels were installed in those places where a film had been shot. Almost a decade later, the status of these panels is no longer what it was, as they denounce from the Almeriacine platform.

"The beautiful information panels that marked the routes, very exposed to the sun and the weather, have deteriorated over time," explains the head of Almeriacine, Juanen Pérez Miranda. 

“Some have been preserved or replaced (castle and Tabernas square, Senés ...) but others, most, are completely sunburned (the Turtle, Owl viewpoint, Red Canyon, Queen of Swords mine ...), in the wood, without a trace of printing ”, laments Pérez Miranda.

The Commonwealth
The complaint, made through Facebook, exemplifies the situation with an image of the information panel of Rambla Benavides . “There is no doubt the very bad impression it causes in a foreign visitor. Better nothing than this image, of course, ”says Pérez Miranda.

The proximity of social networks allowed the mayor of the town of Tabernas, José Díaz, to explain the current situation and the truth is that there are several factors to consider.

"There are other circumstances, and it is that the Commonwealth (which was the one who put them) has no activity and, in addition, Tabernas stopped being part of it for years," explains the mayor on Facebook.

But beyond the administrative situation of the institution that promoted this initiative in 2011, Díaz himself indicates that he has sought to improve the status of these information panels in the municipality of Tabernas.

"The Andalusian Government has asked for a grant to change them, but it has not been granted," he says. On the other hand, he himself argues why they remain installed despite not being readable, in most cases: “If they are removed, they will never be allowed to put them back on,” he reasons.

In addition, José Díaz indicates, “we have also asked for interpretive and informative signage of the desert, to report the most important prohibitions, especially for the destruction that motorcycles and quads are producing”.

However, at the moment the truth is that the informative posters of the cinema of this region suffer from abandonment.  “The future costs are never anticipated or if there will be economic items for the maintenance of what has been done. Once the budget has been exhausted, the project is abandoned to its fate, whatever lasts, ”Pérez Miranda laments.

Thus, and for the moment, the passage of cinema through Almeria remains ephemeral: the routes through that natural set that is the province lacks (at least in this area) some indications at the height of the films that have gone through Almeria

 

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