“Donde no puedas amar, no te demores” – Frida Kahlo
For many people who move to Manchester, the city becomes a home away from home, a place where they have learnt to live their new lives and love in its own right.
No less for the Spanish-speaking communities here, who have curated a blend of Hispanic and English culture to engage with their heritage while abroad.
And last month’s ¡Viva! film festival – a Manchester-based showing of Spanish and Latin American cinema – celebrated its 30th anniversary with a series of films and cultural experiences.
Pedro Jesús Eusebio Cuenta, Director of the Instituto Cervantes in Manchester who worked with HOME Cinema to produce ¡Viva!, was keen to stress the festival’s importance.
He said: “On the 30th anniversary of the festival, we have welcomed directors from around the Spanish-speaking world, from Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Spain, just five of the 21 countries who share this language and its immense diversity of cultures.
“Yet what makes Viva Festival so important and unique is that it is not only a month every year to focus on the screening of the best contemporary Latin American and Spanish cinema, it also gives a space for the debates and challenges of contemporary society raised throughout those films.
“In these times there is rapid and permanent change, especially with the development of digital technology, so film festivals hold greater significance than ever before.
“Digital platforms have made it easier to disseminate cinema in a certain sense, making it more widespread, democratic and open, but nothing can replace the movie theatre experience.
“And I would like to stress how important cinema is, not just as an art, but as a part of society with the debates it provokes in democracies around the world.”
The official data from the 2021 Census shows there are 4,032 native Spanish speakers in Manchester and many more who learn Castilian as a second language at centres such as Instituto Cervantes.
In fact, Manchester has the highest proportion of Spanish speakers in relation to its population in the north of England, with 0.76%.
The second highest percentage of Spanish speakers can be found in neighbouring Salford, with 0.57% of residents.
Nationally, the number of Spanish speakers increased significantly over the past decade.
According to the 2011 Census, there were 120,000 people who reported Spanish as their first language, but in the 2021 Census, this figure had increase to a total of 215,000 UK residents.
As a result, Spanish has risen from the 10th to the sixth most common maternal language in the UK over the 10 year period between the most recent censuses.
However, it is not just Spanish films which are a key part of the ¡Viva! experience.
Rachel Hayward, the Head of Film Strategy at HOME, believes the other cultures included in the festival are also important.
She said: “There is an incredible range of styles and cinema histories to draw on to compile the festival programmes. We love showcasing these different cultures and languages, such Basque, Catalan, Galician, Quechua, Mixtec and so many more.
“Working with so many different countries, means that the selection is always diverse and interesting – after all we’re drawing work from a huge population of people.”
With around half a billion first-language Spanish speakers worldwide, there is clearly no shortage of options when it comes to the festival.
But ¡Viva! also go beyond the languages of Spain and Latin America, embracing a range of film genres and diversity of directors.
“The festival taps into specific areas of interest for the curators: including road movies, such as auteur cinema, genre cinema and neo-realist cinema.
“In particular we enjoy discovering the high quality of work female directors from Spain and Latin America – this year, like last, we had just over 50% of the programme directed by women.”
The team are also keen to expand the festival outside of Manchester, where there are other communities of Spanish speakers.
In the North of England specifically, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and York also have large contingents of Castilian-speaking populations.
And Dr Carlos van Tongeren – a lecturer in modern Spanish culture at the University of Manchester – believes these communities come together to be able share their roots.
He said: “When people migrate, whether for personal reasons or political or economic reasons, there’s always a sense they are leaving something behind and that they are losing part of their background and identity.
“It’s the sense that you have to rebuild a sense of belonging, a sense of identity for yourself, I’ve met quite a few people from Spain who started engaging in their culture in a very different way when they moved abroad, precisely because they started missing aspects that they never would have paid much attention too, simply because they no longer have access to it on a daily basis.
“For example, there are people that I’ve met who did not like flamenco at all when they lived in Spain, but then when they migrated abroad, all of a sudden, they started appreciating it more and taking flamenco lessons as a way of preserving that connection with their own culture.
“On a broader scale, that happens a lot through language, music, culture, food. Being able to share those things is vital for people to be to feel at home and having people around you that share those same interests can be really helpful for people, especially when you’re going through really difficult circumstances.”
“That’s why it’s so important that, in a city like Manchester, anybody from any background can engage with Spanish and Latin American culture in any way.”
Many adopted Mancunians have grown to love the city which they now identify as home from home.
And cultural celebrations like ¡Viva! certainly allow those with links to the Spanish-speaking world to enjoy and appreciate their heritage in their new city.
After all, as Frida Kahlo said: “Where you cannot love, don’t spend too long.”
Feature image credit: Rob White
