The Malaga Festival held the presentation of the documentary ‘Gerald Brenan: el regreso definitivo’ this Monday in the Rossini Hall of the Teatro Cervantes with the Mayor of Alhaurín el Grande, Anthony Bermúdez; the Councillor for Culture of the Alhaurín el Grande City Council, Luis Guerrero; the third vice president of Diputación de Malaga, Antonia Ledesma; the executive producer, Francisco Quintero; the director, Emilio Ruiz Barrachina and José Infante, poet and narrator of the documentary produced by Abengsa Innovación y Gestión Cultural and Hemisphere Films all in attendance , and financed by the city council of Alhaurín el Grande and the Provincial Council of Malaga.
 
'We are grateful that the Malaga Festival opens its doors to us. There is no better place to dream of for this presentation,' said Luis Guerrero. ‘Gerald Brenan: el regreso definitivo’, which is in the production phase, is directed by the filmmaker Emilio Ruiz Barrachina, and will tell the story of the British author’s definitive return to Alhaurín el Grande forty years later, an expert in the work of García Lorca. Recognised as one of the great Hispanists of literature, Gerald Brenan lived for many years in Andalusia, but in his old age he left his residence in Alhaurín El Grande to be admitted to a London sanatorium against his will.
 
'We will start filming immediately, and hopefully this documentary can be presented next year here at the Festival,' said Ruiz Barrachina, who has revealed some details of the project, which will feature testimonies from people who shared experiences with Brenan during his time in Alhaurín el Grande. ‘It is a product that was born with an international vision; modest but ambitious. It’s very focused on giving a voice to these witnesses of the event that was Brenan's return to Alhaurín el Grande,’ reaffirmed Francisco Quintero, producer of the film that will feature the narration of the poet and journalist José Infante.
 
In the 80s, Infante interviewed Gerald Brenan when he was admitted to a nursing home in London for the RTVE programme Informe Semanal. ‘When I arrived at that residence, I found a helpless old man, eager to return to Spain. I think that is why the great protest that led to a campaign to bring him back at that time was notable,’ Infante recalled in the presentation of the documentary that will recover this interview and other documents and images from different archives.
 
The film is an Alhaurín el Grande City Council initiative, to which the Hispanist bequeathed his personal library, and is part of the activities to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the writer's return, on the 21st of June 1984. According to its mayor, Anthony Bermúdez, ‘we would like the screening of the documentary to coincide with the commemorations of his return to Alhaurín el Grande’.
 
Diputación of Malaga is another of the institutions that also supports the production of the documentary. In the presentation, its third vice president, Antonia Ledesma, wanted to emphasise the synergy between the institutions to carry out this historic project: ‘We have always been clear about our commitment to Brenan's legacy and today the important thing here is that us, as institutions, have joined forces to make this documentary about a man in love with our land who, when he returned, the first thing he said was 'I'm coming home’.