culture

El Hierro premieres the documentary “Whistling on the island of the wind”

The documentary that highlights one of the assets that form part of the immaterial heritage of El Hierro will be screened tomorrow 14 March at the El Mocanal Cultural Centre in Valverde.

“El silbo en la isla del viento” (Whistling on the island of the wind) is a documentary by filmmaker Tarek Ode on the whistling language of El Hierro, which aims to disseminate this intangible heritage of the island. Tomorrow 14 March, at18.00 hours, this film, funded by the Government of the Canary Islands and the Canary Islands Institute for Cultural Development (ICDC), will be premiered at the Cultural Centre of El Mocanal (Valverde).


The screening, in collaboration with the El Hierro Island Council, will be attended by Nona Perera, Director General of Cultural Heritage; Tatiana Brito, Island Councillor for Historical Heritage, and the author. Admission is free until full capacity is reached.

The documentary, almost 50 minutes long, features music by Remedios Morales González, Adela Padrón Pérez, Angélica Pérez and the Sabinosa Folkloric group. It is also a tribute to all those who have shared their wisdom, experiences and hopes to rescue this asset, such as the Cultural Association for the Investigation and Conservation of the El Hierro’s Whistle, who have actively participated in the production of the audiovisual.

One of the lines of work of the department directed by Nona Perera to conserve the whistling language of the archipelago is to document these manifestations of cultural heritage, using the documentary format as a vehicle for dissemination to bring this ancestral knowledge closer to the public. The manifestations of the intangible heritage of the Canary Islands are numerous and some of them are in danger of being lost, as is the case of the silbo herreño, hence the importance of disseminating its linguistic, anthropological, sonorous, ethnographic, geographical, orographic, landscape and identity values.

The Directorate General of Cultural Heritage thus continues its work of promoting and disseminating the whistling language of each of the Canary Islands through informative projects, such as the documentary “El lenguaje silbado de Gran Canaria. Pervivencia y futuro” (The whistling language of Gran Canaria: Survival and Future), among others that will be presented soon.


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