Trailer for ‘The Heart of the Earth’, with Jorge Perugorría, Joaquim de Almeida and Ana Fernández.
‘El corazón de la tierra’ (‘The Heart of the Earth’, 2006), by the Spanish director Antonio Cuadri, has in its cast the renowned Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría, who shares the bill with the Portuguese actor Joaquim de Almeida, the Spanish Ana Fernández (‘Solas’), the Colombian Catalina Sandino Moreno, as well as with the British sienna guillory (in the photo) and Bernand Hill and the North American Philip Winchester, among others.
The film, Cuadri’s most ambitious film to date, is based on real events and translates to celluloid the painful images of the homonymous novel by Juan Cobos Wilkins, about the popular revolt of Minas de Riotinto (Huelva) that occurred in 1888, when the people rose up to protest the miserable working conditions in the mines, owned by a British company.
In the direction of photography is Javier G. Salmones, lighting designer for ‘Romasanta’, by Paco Plaza; ‘The language of the butterflies’, by José Luis Cuerda; ‘Rain on shoes’, by María Ripoll.
Trailer, making of and official page of ‘The heart of the earth’. ‘The Heart of the Earth’ is a struggle of love and power and is heavily charged with social criticism. The film reconstructs, with digital effects, the atmosphere and locations of the Corta Atalaya mine as it was in the 19th century when those harrowing historical events took place. These mines were a place of social struggle between the interests of the mining company that exploited, not only the mines, but also the miners.
The Tartessians exported the metals obtained there, the Romans also exploited them, the Riotinto mines, the epicenter of a region that became practically a British colony at the end of the 19th century, when the Riotinto Company Limited (RTL) acquired the rights exploitation of these ancient mines, becoming in a short time the most powerful company in Europe.
The RTL imposed inhumane working conditions, long hours, low wages, added to this was the contamination of the teleras (accumulation of minerals that gave off fumes capable of devastating crops, killing livestock and seriously harming the health of the inhabitants) that affected about 800 km around, a real ecological attack. All this situation led to an uprising of the workers and their families, which had the worst response from the power… a massacre, what is known in Huelva as “the year of the shots”, or the “martyrs”. of Riotinto”.
The difference in the standard of living of the British and the people of the towns was scandalous, it became manifest in the Bellavista neighborhood, here they enjoyed all the luxuries and comforts while the working people lived poorly, a stone wall guarded the neighborhood and separated to the two groups, at the entrance doors, guards who only allowed the passage to members of the company.
The events took place on February 4, 1888, the day on which a demonstration was called, attended by men, women and children from all the towns of the Mining Basin, gathered in the Plaza de la Constitución, and when reading a written with the request that the calcinations of the ore, the teleras system, so harmful to health and improvements in working conditions, be stopped, it was when the forces of the Spanish army of the Pavia regiment, began to shoot indiscriminately, leaving the square covered with corpses.
Antonio Cuadri also made a documentary called ‘Riotinto: The heartbeat of the earth’, which involves a journey through the mining region of Huelva, from the remote time of the beginning of the exploitation of the deposits to the present moment, in which a group of Scientists are investigating whether there could be life similar to that on Mars in the Tinto River.
At present, the towns of the mining basin are dying, “I have a family there, my grandparents were part of this land, tourist proposals and conversion to agriculture seem possible solutions that are being considered, but the strong and constant commitment of the administrations is necessary. , we have a historical debt with this land, there are people who think that the precursors of the European ecological movements were born here”.
Pre-premiered in Huelva, this social drama is expected to hit screens in Latin America in the first months of 2007.
Antonio Cuadri’s previous film, ‘La Buena voz’, premiered in May 2006 in Spanish cinemas. The film, Cuadri’s third for the cinema and the fifth feature film he has directed, stars José Luis Gómez, Pilar Velázquez, Biel Durán and Klara Badiola, while the secondary roles will be played mainly by Basque actors. Antonio Cuadri highlighted that “working on this film with José Luis Gómez has been a magnificent experience and a true privilege because he is an actor from Huelva of recognized international prestige”.
The story of ‘La Buena voz’ was set in the city of Bilbao “a city with many contrasts, because it is a place of Andalusian immigration, a depersonalized industrial city, full of anonymous people who wander through its streets without knowing where they are going”. In this sense, Cuadri clarified that “it is a story based on a poem by the Sevillian poet Antonio Machado, as a tribute, where his shadow is reflected in a very beautiful way”. The director himself reported that the story, “ideal for drama lovers, reflects the intransigence of a taxi driver -José Luis Gómez- in his fifties, an emigrant in the Basque Country, as well as the evolution, dramatically very strong, because he is very intolerant of his son natural, gay and sero-positive, while his wife accepts it”.
