The film El maestro que prometió el mar (The teacher who promised the sea), directed by Patricia Font and starring Enric Auquer and Laia Costa, has been released. The film has 5 nominations for the Goya Awards, 6 nominations for the Gaudí Awards and 2 nominations for the Feroz Awards.
The film is based on the book Desenterrando el silencio: Antoni Benaiges, el maestro que prometió el mar, by Francesc Escribano and has been adapted for the big screen by Albert Val.
The film tells the story of how Ariadna (Laia Costa) discovers that her grandfather has long been searching for the remains of her father, who disappeared during the Civil War. Determined to help him, she travels to Burgos, where they are exhuming a mass grave where he could be buried. While there, she learns the story of Antoni Benaiges (Enric Auquer), a young teacher from Mont-Roig del Camp (Tarragona) who was her grandfather’s teacher before the war. Using an innovative teaching method, Antoni inspired his pupils and made them a promise: to take them to see the sea.
The film interweaves past and present through two plots that build a story about memory and the importance of not letting our recent history fall into oblivion. The plot of Ariadna (Laia Costa) highlights the struggle of so many families who are still searching for their relatives buried anonymously in mass graves, while that of Antoni Benaiges (Enric Auquer) pays tribute to the Republican teachers, in a moving and fully relevant story.
