For 14 years, every October the Almeria Western Film
Festival has revived the era of splendour of the Andalusian Far West
Diario Las Americas
October 19, 2024
Tabernas - Shots ring out in front of the saloon and a
cowboy collapses on the ground. The scene of numerous spaghetti westerns in the
1960s and 70s, the Spanish province of Almeria continues to exploit that golden
age with a film festival, new shoots and even theme parks.
Great titles such as “A Fistful of Dollars”, “The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly” and “Once Upon a Time in America”, by Italian director
Sergio Leone, were not shot in the United States, but in the Tabernas desert,
an area of 28,000 hectares of dunes, canyons, steppes and cacti near Almeria,
in southern Spain.
Three towns – with their dusty streets, wooden facades,
the sheriff's office and, of course, the saloon – that served as sets back then
are now theme parks, although they are still receiving filming.
With carriages, a church or even a coffin, in Fort Bravo,
one of them, there is no lack of detail. The show is performed by some
fictitious cowboys who perform performances on horseback that end with
gunpowder.
"Truly deserted"
Equipped with a vest and cowboy boots, Rafael Aparicio is
one of them, having started as an extra on the set as a teenager.
"This was where I learned to do everything that is
done today: horses, falling from heights, fighting foot to ground...",
says this 49-year-old man.
In the parking lot, about fifteen trucks, caravans and a
white tent give away that there is a film in progress.
"The light here is a particular light," Italian
actor Fabio Testi, 83, told AFP, underlining one of the factors that attracted
cinema to this then isolated region. "You can shoot from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00
p.m. and there is always the same light," adds this interpreter who
participated in several of those productions.
"It doesn't rain here and the landscape is just like
the United States... and much cheaper," says José Enrique Martínez, author
of Almería, un mundo de película, in reference to the similarity of this
region with the Arizona area and South Texas.
"At the beginning, cinema was a family thing,"
he says about the beginnings of the activity in Almeria. "Everyone wanted
to be in the movies," adds this historian originally from the region,
recalling how workers and masons preferred to appear in productions because
they earned more.
It was not difficult to find extras who could pass
themselves off as credible cowboys or Mexican peasants with sun-battered skin.
But when Sergio Leone set up his camera in Tabernas,
everything became more industrial, with infrastructures, associations of riders
or carpenters already with approved rates, Martínez continues. In the 1960s,
dozens of westerns were filmed.
"Sergio Leone would play (Ennio) Morricone's
music..., everyone would get into the atmosphere and then say: 'chac,
acción'," recalls Fabio Testi. "It was like Texas for us. It was
truly desert, desert, and nothing more. There was a hotel in Almeria," he
recalls.
That isolation was too much for some stars like Clint
Eastwood, who complained about the endless journeys to Tabernas. Almeria
airport was inaugurated in 1968, facilitating the arrival of actors such as
Sean Connery, Brigitte Bardot or Louis de Funès.
"Long live the Western!"
Almeria is not, however, just a land of Westerns. Films
set in North Africa or the Middle East, such as Lawrence of Arabia, were also
shot in this area, recalls Robert Yareham, author of Movies made in Spain.
After the 1970s, activity in Tabernas slowed down, but
recently it picked up the pace with filming such as the series ‘Zorro’ with
Jean Dujardin, the upcoming ‘Lucky Luke’ or the filming of “Strange Way of
Life”, the short film in the form of a queer western that Pedro Almodóvar
premiered last year. Some passages from the popular series ‘The Crown’ or ‘Game
of Thrones’ were also located here.
And, for the past 14 years, every October the Almeria
Western Film Festival has revived the era of splendour of the Andalusian Far
West.
With a hat and a scarf around his neck, Juan Castro
proudly claims the only European festival dedicated to the genre.
"It is true that in many places in Europe the
western is like something of the past, but here that essence is still
alive," says the 41-year-old professor.
This year, the jury awarded the film “Until the End of
the World”, by Viggo Mortensen, who made a plea in favor of the genre from the
stage.
"It is not true that the western has died. There is
always room for new stories," he said. "Long live the western and
long live the western filmed in Almeria!"
