Between 1954 and 1966 there was a Francoist concentration camp in Fuerteventura hidden under the name of Colonia Agrícola Penitenciaria de Tefía. It was one of the places where the regime sent those convicted by the Law of vagrants and thugs and which later included homosexuals. One of the darkest and most unknown episodes in the recent history of Spain that recovers from oblivion Las noches de Tefía, the new series produced by Buendía Producciones with the participation of Atresmedia TV that this Sunday arrives on the Atresplayer platform.
Created by the playwright, screenwriter and stage director Miguel del Arco, the series adds an element of fantasy to this hard and true story as it is that, in order to survive the harsh conditions of the concentration camp, the prisoners travel at night with their imagination to the El Tindaya cabaret, where their fantasies are fulfilled through the alter ego of each one of them.
Miguel del Arco wanted to recall during the presentation of the series to the media that in Spain “there were many concentration camps not only during the Civil War but also throughout the dictatorship” and pointed out the importance of betting on publicizing these stories “in a country where we are still with historical memory in circles”.
Las noches de Tefía begins in 2004, when one of the prisoners held for his homosexuality, Airam Betancor (played by Jorge Perugorría), is forced to remember the seventeen months of forced labor he suffered in Tefía when he was barely twenty years old. The investigations of a documentarian who tries to give voice to the silent history of the penal colony force Airam to this painful exercise.
Marcos Ruiz plays this same character in his young version, when he arrives in Tefía in the sixties, shy and scared, after being denounced for having homosexual relations. Along with him also comes Manuel, La Vespa (Patrick Criado), who had already been in Tefía before where he knows all his inmates and is a bit the soul of the group due to his courage and for being able to make humor at any time, for tragic as it is
More inmates are Charli (Miquel Fernández), locked up for his alcohol problems, and who is the narrator who invented El Tindaya as an escape valve; Nisa (Carolina Yuste), attractive and with a prodigious voice, with an aura of mystery that arouses passions; Boncho (Raul Prieto), a macho movie star, hustler and cocky air; ‘La Sissi’ (Javier Rueda), a woman locked in a man’s body and ‘La Viga’ (Roberto Álamo), the strong and violent jailer, especially with homosexuals whom he especially despises.
One of the great challenges faced by the cast of the series was to follow a strict diet to reflect on their own bodies the subhuman conditions in which the prisoners lived. “For me, the diet meant the connection between my real self and the character,” said Luifer Rodríguez, who gives life to another of the characters, ‘La Pinito’.
“Losing 18 kilos in two and a half months makes you feel weaker, not being able to walk because you get dizzy and that connected me personally with the possible drama that these people could have. Going hungry helped us to be in the facts and we had to make the commitment that this story was precious, but we had to accompany it with going hungry ”, he added.
