Galician Caress (of Clay)

Directed by José Val del Omar

With Ezequiel Méndez and Arturo Baltar

This film was reconstructed and completed in 1995 by Javier Codesal for the Filmoteca de Andalucia, from the montage and the sound that Val del Omar had outlined before his death, after having returned to a project abandoned twenty years before with the incorporation of significant additions (above all in the soundtrack). Val del Omar's notes show that, as he typically did, he had other alternative titles in mind, such as "Acariño de la Terra Meiga" (Caress of the Magic Land), "Acariño a nosa terra" (Caress of Our Land), or "Barro de ánimas" (Clay of Souls), and that in the final phase of the unfinished project he wanted to add a second sound channel – following the diaphonic principle, and using electro-acoustic techniques – consisting of ambient material that he intended to record at the first screenings of the film in the very places and to the very people that were its origin: its "clay".