Thursday, May 18, 2006
Teno Documentary A Real Jewel of Nature
Regular readers will know that last night was the night of my trip to the "cinema". Well, to the local cultural center to see the new documentary film about the Teno area, Teno: Hombre y Naturaleza (Teno: Man and Nature).
The right thing, of course, is to go with an open mind, but this is Tenerife. Whatever else I think about the island, this is a tourist destination, so I was still expecting the usual lightweight tourist promotional film. I was wrong. This is a real wildlife and nature documentary of National Geographic quality.
There is some utterly amazing closeup filming of the local wildlife, particularly of birds of prey, in flight and feeding young in the nest. The two years it took to film is, largely, due to the time it took to capture these images.
Alascine have taken the trouble too, both with the local flora and fauna, to highlight those species that do not exist anywhere else in the world. There is even footage of Teno's newly discovered, flightless grasshopper.
And I have discovered that there is a lot more scenery, right under my nose, that I didn't know was there. Like lakes and waterfalls, for instance.
There will be further showings in El Palmar tonight, Thursday and in Las Lagunetas on Friday. And I may go again, although I have already been offered the chance to borrow the film if I want to show it to someone.
Once it's been seen locally, the documentary is going to be shown on Spanish National TV, but may go international and is expected that it will be entered into documentary film contests at international level too, because it really is that calibre. Currently the DVD is being made with English, as well as Spanish commentary, but they don't know yet if it will be sold commercially.
If it is made available for sale, you will hear it here first!
