'There is no room': people who want people and people who want people
Traffic jams, pollution, crowds, queues, endless waiting, lack of green areas, stress, rush, exorbitant prices to access a home, urban traps, voracious consumption, job insecurity...
There are many reasons that have led us on more than one occasion to consider **leaving the city and going to live in the countryside**. Of course, there are also many reasons why in the end we never do it: being linked in a family and/or personal way to a place, trapped in a job, condemned to a mortgage , the few job options that can await us in the rural world… And, above all, the vertigo to leave the comfort zone and throw ourselves into the mud.
About these reasons they spoke to Albert of the Valley the protagonists of adobe bodies, a very special exhibition organized by the photographers Lúa Fisher and Daniel Merino: printed life-size portraits of various people who, in one way or another, they felt expelled by the maelstrom of the cities , and pasted them on the numerous abandoned houses of Tabanera de Cerrato , a small town in Palencia. This is how ** There is no space ** was born, his first documentary under the script of Luis Azaza.
Frame from the documentary 'There is no room'
“There is no room for anyone here” , sang Joaquin Sabina in its first version Let's say I'm talking about Madrid . The capital (3,223,334 inhabitants, according to 2018 data) is at the head of the population concentration of our country (47,007,367 inhabitants in 2019), followed by Barcelona (1,620,343) , Valencia (791,413) , Seville (688,711) and Saragossa (666,880).
“The moment we live in, and greatly enhanced by the capitalism and consumerism , has led us to think that cities offer us better jobs, more leisure and more cultural offerings. And although it is true, also we have a lot of time left to enjoy it , not to mention how tremendously expensive What does it mean to live in a big city? Perhaps we are not aware of the many things we don't do in a big city ”, he comments Albert of the Valley to Traveler.es.
As you delve into the depths of Tabanera, the director and producer of the play ran into the big problem that hangs over most of the rural areas of the bull's skin: ** depopulation ** (the town had almost 700 inhabitants in the 50s, but currently they are barely 35 in winter ) .
Castile and Leon is one of the autonomous communities most affected by the abandonment of its neighbors: almost 88% of its municipalities had less population in 2018 than in 1998 . After her, Asturias, Extremadura and Aragon.
Frame from the documentary 'There is no room'
"We don't know what the solution to the problem of rural depopulation is," admits Alberto, "but when we got to Tabanera de Cerrato we did see some Possible forms of rapprochement between “outsiders” and natives : the people who have decided to move there are very committed to rural life and they are clear that the main thing is make community , and continuously work on integration with the rest of the neighbors. They do it through culture, social activities, investigating and recovering lost traditions. And sharing time teleclub (the only social club that serves as a bar and shop in the town), listening to their stories and their teachings”.
It seems that the city is full of people wanting to move to a village and that the villages are looking forward to being filled with people again . But, as del Valle points out, the fact of taking the leap towards a rural life “ It depends on many factors , such as the moment of life of each person, his work and other types of circumstances. Today you can be an urbanite in love and Tomorrow I leave everything and go to town ”.
On the other hand, he points out the contradiction that the increase in urban agglomerations at the height of teleworking : "Right now there is a large number of jobs that can be done from anywhere on the planet that has an internet connection and even so we continue to overcrowd cities."
However, it must also be clear what you want and what you are going for if you decide to take the plunge. “Without a doubt, what you have to keep in mind is the need for respect for the people who live there and their ways of life, and the knowledge of how it is live in a town , that is, not wanting to lead exactly the same life in the town as in the city, because for that… why are you moving? And we say this because we are aware that this happens more than we think... It does not mean that we have to go back to the Middle Ages either, but it does adapt to the new environment knowing how to choose the advantages it offers us ”, points out the documentary maker.
As one of the interviewees in the documentary says, there are many towns that will inevitably end up being completely depopulated , but others can be saved. It seems that Tabanera is on the right track.
Alberto hopes that his documentary will be "a small grain of sand to make visible the work of all the people who have managed to revitalize the town, including the Rural University of Cerrato and El Naan ".
As Carlos, one of the protagonists of the film, said after the screening we did for the residents of Tabanera, "when someone asks me why I have come to live in the town, I will tell them to see there is no room ". For now, everyone who comes this Friday, **September 27th, to the Ponferrada Film Festival** can see it. At 7:00 p.m. at the Casa de la Cultura.
Our parents migrated to urban centers in search of a better future for themselves and their children. Its towns, our towns, little by little and burial after burial, are becoming merely vacation spots. whose streets are increasingly deserted on September 1.
Maybe it's time to go back , for our own good and that of the new generations. And it is that, as Héctor says, another of the protagonists, “We are not trying to recover life as it was 100 years ago, but rather recover some things that have worked very well ”. Overall, what is there to lose?