The Municipality of Nigrán, as every year since 2015, will celebrate the ‘Month of Historical Memory’ throughout October in memory of the tragic event of the ‘Volta dos Nove’ in the region (October 15, 1936). The programming, as usual, will focus this month on different cultural events ranging from the screening of feature films or documentaries, to the presentation of new research books or two distinct tributes for the anniversary of the same “Volta dos Nueve” and the 70 years of the publication of ‘Longa noite de pedra’. Everything will be in the Municipal Auditorium with free admission while seats last.
“As always, it is a program with an informative and educational purpose and aims to keep our memory alive. For the worst of our history not to repeat itself, we must know shameful episodes of our recent past linked to the civil war and Francoist repression.”, Considers the mayor of Nigrán, Juan González, who just as a historian has collected many of these episodes in his book ‘Nigrán. Memory of a war 1936-1939 ‘.
The feature film ‘The infinite trench’, through the Val Miñor Alice Guy film club, will open the program on Sunday 9 October at 19:00 in the Municipal Auditorium. The film by Jon Garaño, Aitor Arregi and José Mari Goenaga with Antonio de la Torre and Belén Cuesta portrays the life of a man hiding in his home for 30 years for fear of Franco’s repression (unfortunately these cases were not anecdotal in Spain and his the protagonists were known as ‘moles’). The cinema returns on Sunday 16 October at the same time and place with ‘As long as the war lasts’a film by Alejandro Aménabar that portrays the position of the famous writer Miguel de Unamuno (played by Karra Elejalde) who goes from publicly supporting the military rebellion of 1936 to questioning and rejecting it in the face of its bloody drift.
An important part of programming is presentation of new research books addressing repression and revolt in the province of Pontevedra, their authors will then be present and a subsequent interview will be set up. Thus, through the Institute of Studies Miñorano, Wednesday 12 at 19:00 will be the turn of ‘Alejandro Viana, Galician in charge of rescuing republican refugees’from Roberto Mera. Sunday 23 at 19:00 José Antonio Uris and Víctor Manuel Santidrián present ‘The Gate of Hell. Camposancos ‘concentration camp which will be accompanied by the screening of the documentary by Antonio Caeiro’ Aislados. The memory of the prisoners of 1936 on the island of San Simón ‘. The programming will close on Wednesday 26th at 20:00 ‘The years of silence. Repression and resistance in the province of Pontevedra (1936-1951) ‘by Xosé Álvarez Castro, also in collaboration with the IEM. At the same time, the Council will offer a talk by Carlos Meixome on his book “Tasting in Memory” at IES Val Miñor and IES Proval, entertaining both centers with various copies.
One of the main events will be the screening on Thursday 20 of “The Priest Prison”, a Basque documentary from 2021 by Oier Aranzabal, Ritxi Lizartza and David Pallarés who tells the story of the royal voyage to which 53 religious from Madrid, Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque Country were subjected in his forcible transfer to the aforementioned Zamora prison, which was the only prison for priests in the world. The screening will be attended by its directors and some religious in retaliation to establish a subsequent conversation.
likewise, el Concello will collaborate with Lucenza-Ateneo to propose on October 14 at the Municipal Auditorium an act in honor of the 70th anniversary of the publication of ‘Long stone night’ by Celso Emilio Ferreiro, a key book for understanding contemporary Galician literature. This title and the work as a whole refer to the prison suffered by the author in the Mosteiro de Celanova in 1937, however, beyond the anecdotal or personal dimension, this long stone night has been repeatedly identified with the long Franco dictatorship. .
On October 15, as every year, the Municipal Council will participate in the acts in homage to the murdered in the ‘Volta dos Nove’ of Baiona and will celebrate his particular at 12:00 in the Garden of Memory (next to the Panxón Pavilion). The event took place on October 15, 1936, when nine residents of O Val Miñor were executed (five of them from Panxón) as revenge and repression of the Falangists for the previous day’s event in Sabarís, when in the assault of the forces on the house of the republican brothers “Los Ineses” died, their assistant Dolores Samuelle and also one of the Falangists. Hours later, coup supporters kidnapped nine O Val Miñor residents detained in Frontón prison in Vigo and shot them in revenge at La Bombardera bend in Baiona. For more than 40 years nine crosses were painted there in memory of the deceased and, although erased and the authors carefully researched, they were always drawn anew. Currently the place is a space of memory and the crosses are preserved, now printed, in memory of everything that happened.
