Spanish youngster grapples with custom in The Boy and the Swimsuit of Lights

A brand new documentary follows a boy residing in a small city in Spain, whose household expects him to turn into an expert bullfighter.

It could sound like an uncommon profession alternative in an period the place bullfighting is taken into account a merciless and outdated sport, primarily as a consequence of problems with animal welfare.

Social attitudes in some components of Castellón, nonetheless, will not be fairly as progressive as these in close by Valencia and Barcelona, and the boy’s grandfather, unbothered by the controversy surrounding bullfighting, encourages his grandson to pursue it.

A brand new documentary, The Boy and the Swimsuit of Lights, which has simply premiered on the Sheffield Documentary Pageant, follows the kid, Borja, and the connection together with his grandfather, Matias, over a number of years.

Director Inma De Reyes, who’s from Castellón, grew up with the bullring within the centre of her hometown and noticed protection of bullfights on tv, however did not realise her birthplace was thought-about Spain’s bullfighting capital.

“It’s a small city where time hasn’t passed, people have very traditional jobs, they work in fishing, the orange fields, or bullfighting, and every so often there would be a traditional celebration which is religious.

“So I see my hometown as the place nothing ever adjustments. That is why I left, I did not slot in there, I needed to discover the world and discover out who I used to be exterior of that place.

“And by coming back and making a film there, that’s how I started to look more in depth at how families are putting values onto children and the children’s personalities are being shaped.”

When de Reyes started trying into the topic for a documentary, her mom despatched her native newspaper articles highlighting the bullfighting traditions, and the film-maker was opened as much as a world she “hadn’t taken an interest” in beforehand.

“My granddad owned books and posters about bullfighting, but I did think that was generations ago,” de Reyes remembers. “I didn’t know how big the culture was.”

A buddy of the Spanish director, who’s now based mostly in Edinburgh, related her to a bullfighting faculty, by which she in the end met Borja.

The observe sees the bullfighter, normally in vivid and embellished clothes, try and subdue, immobilise, or kill a bull, in a hoop in entrance of a reside viewers.

It is clear from the movie that Matias harbours his personal unfulfilled desires of turning into an expert bullfighter, and pins his ambitions on his grandson succeeding the place he failed, partly within the hope it’d assist carry the household out of poverty.

Coming from underprivileged background, Borja feels restricted by a life with seemingly little alternative, and goes alongside together with his household’s needs to start with.

Producer Aimara Reques says turning into a bullfighter is “a romantic idea”, including: “That’s what Borja is holding on to.”

“Everybody sees the bullfighter as a figure with status, you don’t think of the killing. As a child, he’s fantasising just as the family does. ‘Oh, wow, he’s going to be standing up there’.

“It is a theatrical occasion, it is fairly camp in a way, you costume up, the moms are so proud. However then you must kill the bull, that is the largest paradox.”

Filmed over five years, The Boy and the Suit of Lights doesn’t shy away from the controversy surrounding bullfighting.

Borja watches as protestors storm the ring during one fight with banners which say “No violence.”

However, for a film with bullfighting at its centre – it contains noticeably little bullfighting footage. Instead, it’s the backdrop of a subtle coming-of-age story about adolescence, family and poverty.

“We knew that the movie could not have bullfighting on the entrance,” says de Reyes. “Borja’s coming-of-age story needed to be entrance and centre, and in addition to make the movie watchable.

“You can watch bullfighting on YouTube, I was not interested in capturing any more of that. It’s more about forming a personality as a child.”

On a sensible stage, there additionally wasn’t an enormous variety of bullfights going down – solely two happened because the documentary was taking pictures.

De Reyes, who’s now based mostly in Edinburgh, describes Borja’s persona as “gentle and caring” – a temprement presumably unsuited to the bullfighting world.

“At the beginning, I was very impressed by Borja’s dedication and he was so diligent about his duty. He was almost like, ‘this is what I’ve been told to do and this is what I’m going to do’. I thought he was an amazing child,” says de Reyes.

“And as time goes by, I hope you can see in the film how his mind doesn’t fully engage with the commitment of killing a bull. And I also felt that as a director, that Borja wasn’t made for this, and he kind of knew it.”

The movie consists of footage of Borja and his brother rehearsing utilizing reproduction bulls’ heads mounted on wheeled frames, with their grandfather trying on.

It additionally follows Borja in different settings – spending time together with his associates and getting a standard bullfighter’s costume fitted.

Nonetheless, the problem of placing Borja’s personal story entrance and centre was that, like many boys his age, he wasn’t at all times liable to sharing his emotions.

“Making the film, I was trying to capture what Borja was thinking without him saying it,” says de Reyes, “because I don’t feel like he would ever say to anybody that he wasn’t going to do this – but you could tell.

“So attempting to seize that in cinema, saying he is beginning to have these ideas, with none voiceovers or interviews, was actually laborious.”

She credits her cinematographer with capturing Borja’s emotions via facial expressions and body language. “You begin to realise he is bought quite a bit happening, simply by him.”

Although legal in Spain, many individual cities have outlawed the practice of bullfighting. It also still occasionally takes place in parts of Portugal, Southern France, Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru.

But it has been made illegal in many countries, including the UK, or is in the process of being outlawed. A ban in Colombia is being phased in gradually, and is set to fully take effect in 2027.

De Reyes is aware that some people might hear about the bullfighting element of the film and be put off watching it, but she says the documentary’s message is more “that youngsters must be allowed to discover and be whoever they need to be’.

“And also I hope it broadens [viewers’] minds, not judge immediately someone who is doing something they think is bad, and give someone a second chance and explain the reasons behind some people’s choices.

“Not everyone has the privilege to decide on a profession path or go to college, even when they’re white and in Europe. I hope individuals do not get delay by the phrase bullfighting or the world round it.”

Reques adds that there’s unlikely to be much of a future for bullfighting, even for those who do go on to pursue it as a career.

“The truth is it is an trade in decay,” she says. “It is declining, it does not exist any longer.

“The people who want to hold on to the traditions think it’s very big, but most bullfighters are unemployed. It’s no longer what it was, and that’s obvious in the film.”

The Boy and the Swimsuit of Lights screens at Sheffield DocFest on Sunday, earlier than taking part in different movie festivals within the coming moths. Aconite Productions hopes to distribute it within the UK at a later date.