Antonio Benaiges was a teacher from a small town in Tarragona. In 1934, he got a job teaching the children of Bañuelos de Bureba, another tiny town, in this case in the province of Burgos. The teacher could have rejected that destiny and chosen another position in a school closer to his house, but he decided to go to Burgos because he was convinced that the children of Bañuelos de Bureba needed him.
The teacher arrived at his new destination loaded with innovative ideas, a desire to transmit knowledge, to enjoy educating. He soon made a place for himself in the hearts of the students with his portable printing press, which he used to edit the children's essays and stories.
At the same time, he earned the dislike of the town priest, whom the Republic had removed from his teaching duties. His arrival did not excite the local authorities nor some parents who wanted their children to give up school and go to work as they had done all of God's life.
But Benaiges felt the pleasure of teaching. He belonged to the French Freinet pedagogical school, which supported active, autonomous and creative students. Children had to be the authors of their own learning.
Little by little, the new teacher's way of teaching took over. Benaiges wanted to take the whole class to his native Tarragona to show the children the sea...
Based on a novel by Francesc Escribano, which in turn reflects real events, The Master Who Promised the Sea is emerging as one of the essential titles of the next season. Pay attention to the interpretation of Enric Auquer, who has become Benaiges.
"I read almost everything that had been written about Benaiges to build the character, his articles, which he published in the local press, texts on education, letters he sent to his family... He was an idealist, a passionate man, a republican nihilist who "He believed in utopia. His work as a teacher made sense, his project consisted of going to a place where children were not contaminated by anything and teaching them to enjoy childhood," explains Auquer in a conversation with La Vanguardia.
The film also explores the excavation of the graves of the Civil War through another true story, the exhumation of La Pedraza, in 2010, in the province of Burgos, where 135 bodies of people shot at the outbreak of the conflict were found.
The film is directed by Patricia Font and also has Laia Costa and Luisa Gavasa in the cast. The teacher who promised the sea participated in the official section of the Seminci out of competition and today hits Spanish screens.
