Manuel Jabois writes in his latest novel, Mirafiori (Alfaguara, 2023), that “in such long-term relationships, years can pass before someone realizes that the train is not moving.” On the contrary. The journalist walks along the sleepers. “Do we speak in Castilian or Galician?” he asks. “Well, to decentralize or to de-maddenbetter in Galician,” replies comedian and actor Xosé Touriñán. No sooner said than done. My words made me. The panel in Vigo —on culture and its industries— is conducted in its first language. It is impossible to choose between the green waves and the blue mountains. Galicia is a cultural powerhouse. The commitment of television channels to their own fiction showed the way to success for series such as Flour either Living without permission. Directors of photography, electricians, sound technicians, makeup artists. The land is a goldmine, but many have to work outside. “What happened during the pandemic, people turned to music, books, cinema,” recalls Joaquín Kin Martínez Silva, director of the music agency EsmerArte. “Culture is identity, heritage, history; it is a great challenge and a great opportunity for this community.” Kin represents artists such as Vetusta Morla, Seres Queridos, Juanma Latorre (one of the founders of Vetusta) and Rocío Márquez. And his Tongue in pieces. “As time calls to dust / and the sky to the horizon, / as the earth calls to flesh / and the dagger to blood.” This year, Martínez Silva points out, 600 million euros in tickets have been sold and only 25% came from music.
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Galicia, despite the harmony, does not make it easy for the cultural industries. The actress Nerea Barros won a Goya in 2015 for her performance in The minimal island. The film, directed by Alberto Rodríguez, won ten awards that night, including best film. Barros took home the award for best new actress. However, other things happened to her beforehand. “We Galicians have a tremendous sense of shame. But I also know that my Galician roots are the most important thing. That is why I have gotten behind the camera to tell a story of empowerment of elderly women. I will travel to the Amazon. Perhaps one of the last spaces of wisdom.” She misses the theatre in the streets. But she also leaves behind the cliché of a beautiful woman on a red carpet. “The truth is that it is increasingly difficult for me to return home,” she admits. And she knows well a trade that is as hard as boxwood. “When a crisis appears, actors and dancers are the worst off. But what you have to do is hold on tight and hold on,” she claims and advises.
Another actor, Xosé Touriñán, uses irony as a prompter. “I started playing, and while playing, I suddenly saw that they were paying me!” And curiosity took him almost everywhere: directing, writing, acting. “What you have to do is copy, but the hard part is choosing the good ones. Everyone copies everyone else, because everything has already been invented.” It must be that sarcasm is also a Galician virtue.
Writing is difficult, being original even more so. Ledicia Costas has imagined 20 books for children and adults on the computer. In 2015 she won the National Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature with the work Scarlet fever, cook dies (Ediciones Xerais). There may not be a faculty or a degree that teaches how to write, but there is, she says, a network of “incredible” libraries in Galicia. She fought for her craft. “I am a writer. Ah, very well, they told me, but what do you do for a living? And I had already published before studying Law,” she recalls. “However, Galician writers have something that connects us to this land: I have never given up my language,” she observes. “You can feel it when I translate the texts into Spanish, it is very difficult for me,” she confesses.
Manuel Jabois’ question to Joaquín Martínez Silva is about a different price. “Have you represented any artist because it was going to be a financial success?” “No. Never. I have tried to dignify this profession. There is a lack of data, a lack of a plan to search for talent. Culture is what gives us strength,” he answers. Galicia shares Kirmen Uribe’s verses. “I cannot choose between the sea and the land. I live happily on the line that unites them. On that black ribbon moved by the wind. (…) I cannot choose. I stay here.”
