A zambra is a gypsy party, inspired by a wedding and unleashed at the gates of the rock houses in the Sacromonte district of Granada. Nowadays there are no zambras, and the ones advertised are in reality shams for tourists, mostly foreigners, who are still inclined to snort an orientalist alkaloid when they come to Granada. Zambra, moreover, is the title of Granada filmmaker José Sánchez-Montes’ latest film, a feature-length documentary produced by the Junta de Andalucía, Canal Sur and Granada City Hall, which is at least two things: an attempt to revive the memory of this celebration and a tribute to the people – singers, musicians and dancers, mainly – who were the protagonists of this fiesta. There is also a third reading: recognition of that neighbourhood, its landscape and its outstanding contribution to the history of Granada.
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The film tells the story of everyday life in the Granada neighbourhood through two parallel threads. One of these threads is led by Curro Albaicín, a folkloric celebrity of the city, who is determined to recover the memory of Granada’s historic flamenco. The other thread features the French photographer Jacques Leonard, who in the middle of the last century photographed gypsy families, the protagonists of the real flamenco, and whose memory is recovered by his son Santi, who walks the streets of the neighbourhood with his Rolleiflex camera, pointing to the black and white photographs taken by his father and whose traces he is trying to find. Throughout the film, Paquita de la Chon, Jara Heredia and Angustias la Mona appear, some of them veteran dancers of a vanished era. Halfway through the film, Sánchez-Montes spiritualizes the streets of the neighborhood when, on the night of Holy Wednesday, Cristo de los Gitanos walks the streets of the neighborhood in search of the seclusion of the Sacromonte convent.
