An intact copy of the 1929 documentary 'Viaje por Galicia', filmed by Palencia-born photographer Luis R. Alonso, has been found in the archives of the Deputación da Coruña. Funded by Galician provincial councils and intended for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition in Seville, it is the oldest preserved documentary about the region. Fifty minutes of its footage were screened last week at the Museo do Pobo Galego in Santiago de Compostela.
The documentary 'Viaje por Galicia' captures Galicia a century ago, focusing on monuments such as churches, cathedrals, convents, monasteries, and castles. It depicts everyday scenes, like suited men and women on Riazor beach in A Coruña, a bagpiper with a drum in Santiago de Compostela's Quintana dos Vivos, and the bustling Rúa Real in A Coruña filled with awnings, cafes, and shops.
Filmed by Palencia-born photographer Luis Rodríguez Alonso, who was fascinated by the cinematograph in the early 20th century, the film was commissioned by Francisco Lloréns, curator of the Galician pavilion at the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition in Seville. Alonso, who operated the camera on productions like 'Maruxa' (1923) and directed 'La sobrina del cura' and 'La loca de la casa', created a primitive documentary that, according to film historian José Luis Castro de Paz, professor of Audiovisual Communication at the University of Santiago de Compostela, seems shot in 1900, in the style of the Lumière brothers, ignoring 1920s innovations.
"It's as if it were shot in 1900. Sellier could have done it in 1897," Castro de Paz notes, highlighting its outdated focus on monuments as "a collection of Galician postcards to attract tourists." Yet time has elevated its value: "Any film, no matter how leaden or bad, ends up becoming a train of shadows, a carrier of ghosts," the expert says, praising how it captures fragments of life, like faces in Santiago's Praza de Cervantes or bathers on Santa Cristina beach in Oleiros.
The three-hour copy was discovered three years ago by a Deputación da Coruña employee, who warned of the nitrate film's combustion risk. Deposited at Spain's Film Library in Madrid, it has been digitized without restoration due to its impeccable condition: no marks, color-tinted frames, and excellent photographic quality. In 1991, another copy was restored and premiered by the Centro Galego das Artes da Imaxe (now Galicia's Film Library), but this new one surpasses the previous in quality. It is currently stored at the Filmoteca Española, which holds digitization rights, and is not publicly accessible.