There is a Barcelona uphill that hasn’t been told enough. Overshadowed by the clichés that have stigmatized the periphery, the fight for dignity held by the neighborhoods of the margins in the slow transit of the dictatorship to the democracy hardly received attention in the cinema. Even without films that they honor it, the particular epic that surfaced five decades ago remains alive in the streets that were paved, lit and equipped with public services, conquered thanks to the courage of those who revolted against neglect and humiliation. It happened in many places, also in Baro Towerwhere actors are sought and Additional features these days for a next filming in the neighborhood hanging over Nou Barris. It will portray a story that is pure pride for the neighbors.
The neighborhood does not forget what stuff those who raised it in full were made of Francoism. For some time there have been those who have been asking for a street or a monument to Manuel Vital, a hero in the suburbs for a daring that almost cost him his job: driver of busesone day in 1978, without prior notice, he hijacked the bus that ran between Plaza Catalunya and La Guineueta, one of line 47. After finishing the service, he refused to return to the garage and went up to Torre Baró, filling the vehicle with his neighbors while going up the slopes where public transport had been denied access to the relief of an isolated Barcelona that was a jumble of miseries neglected
A very long queue formed this Monday in the open center attached to the curves where the rebellion was committed. The first ‘casting’ session precedes the recording of ‘El 47’, which produces Mediapro and will direct Marcel Barrena, director of ‘100 metres’ and ‘Mediterranean’. “I lived everything as it was,” Salustiano prides himself, along with the crowd waiting their turn to pass the test. “Vital fought hard for us to have a bus. We threw leaflets, but they ignored us and the city hall he denied us. I saw him from the castle going up with the 47. ‘You’re crazy! Where are you going?’ I yelled at him. He told me that he came to show that he could get on and that people took him & rdquor ;.
Lali has soon joined the line. She was 26 years old when the driver ended the day at the police station. Like many others, she took the bus at the door of the Descanso bar, still open and one of the very few business of the neighborhood, if not the only one. “I lived it very intensely. Cars had to be moved aside so that he could get on and the bus was raised so that a person could pass curve”, he comments.
Salustiano remembers the critical moment well. “Luckily there was a pallet booth. We took picks and shovels and everyone began to dig. We open a gap of four or five meters. We wanted to go to Saint James square so that they would listen to us in the town hall & rdquor ;, recalls the man, who has not erased the image of the gray armed. “In the Meridiana they were already waiting for us with submachine guns and aiming at us & rdquor ;, he describes.
in police station
He route it extended to Valencia street. life was arrested and some passengers had to testify well into the night, such as Serafina Escudero Pérez: “They asked me why we had done that nonsense. ‘Well, because there are no buses in the neighborhood,’ I answered& rdquor;. “It was the beginning for them to pay attention to us,” says Emilio Doménech. Associate that one conjure collective -which culminated with the first buses arriving at Torre Baró a couple of years later- with the drive with which the hillside began to be populated. “To build my home30 got together and did it in one night,” he evokes.
“They had to be done that way. If not, they came guards and they would throw them away the next day & rdquor ;, clarifies Laura. She also got into the kidnapped vehicle, only three years old and nestled in her mother’s lap. She would like to take part in the neighborhood movie, which she still believes has been neglected, as other casting participants say: “Do you see shopsa school or a park in conditions? And we don’t have shelters at the bus stops. When it rains, we get soaked waiting for it.”
Almost half a century after the mutiny of ’47, there are still calls for improvements in the public transport, emphasizes the vice president of the Torre Baró Neighborhood Association, José Antonio Martínez Vicario. “There is no night bus and, in Torre Baró sur, the passes were frequently withdrawn so that the bus would go on demand, but the application to request it gives problems. He programs it 15 days in advance but then it takes 50 or 70 minutes to arrive, when here you depend on him to go to the doctor or go shopping,” says Vicario, who points out that Vital’s audacity “is still very valid and a sign of identity”. “It excites us and it is a recognition that we have achieved everything by fighting: the light poles, a bus in good condition, the pipes… No one has ever given us anything,” he makes clear.
suburban grievances
“Without what he and our parentswe would have nothing& rdquor ;, thinks Toni Ruiz, who attends the ‘casting’ with the family. “Here we have always had to act like this to be heard. My father did it so that they paved the street and put light. I, in 2012, did it so that we would have gas and, eight months ago, we cut the Meridian by bus on demand. we still feel marginalized. We are 2,900 neighbors and few votes & rdquor ;, he blurts out.
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“There is still a long way to go before they consider us citizens from Barcelona& rdquor ;, shares María del Valle, who accompanies Nora, her granddaughter. “Here the schools and everything have been achieved by cutting roads. In Torre Baro, Meridian City and Vallbona it works like this. To pay taxeswe are Barcelona but, when it comes to having rights, we are not first class & rdquor ;, he laments. “The neighborhoods of suburbs they are no less than the rest of Barcelona. We want them to realize it & rdquor ;, completes Nora.
Even before being recorded, the film already has the virtue of having revealed Vital’s audacity to the youths from the neighborhood, attracted by the call of the producers. “This noon my grandfather told me about it. I didn’t get on the bus because I couldn’t, but because vagrancy and because they did not want it to go up & rdquor ;, sums up Nelba. Pedro is almost the age when his grandmother boarded the bus that the driver seized. “If it hadn’t been for the ‘casting’, I wouldn’t know the story,” admits the boy, who sports long hair, a beard and a mustache. In the style of the time when everything had to be fought.