The Olimp Cinema was illuminated, as always, volunteers were on site, but nothing had changed. The atmosphere was heavy and subdued. The Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival has announced in advance that due to the three days of mourning following the tragic incident in Tempi, the planned opening ceremony of the 25th edition, parties and concerts will be cancelled. So, on Thursday evening, the world premiere of “La Singla” took place without speeches and announcements, in rainy Thessaloniki. “Cinema can comfort us even in the most difficult times,” said festival director Orestis Andreadakis, and that was enough.

Indeed, the film by the Spanish director Paloma Tapata, which tells about the deaf flamenco dancer Antonia Single, was a small salvation from the gloom of the days. Spanish-Gypsy Antonia Singla, or “La Singla” as she was known around the world before she suddenly disappeared, was born in 1948 in the slums of Barcelona. She was very young and, before she could speak, she lost her hearing. And although her future was, to put it mildly, uncertain, she did what even today seems incredible: she became a flamenco dancer without hearing a single note in her life.

The ferocious yet striking look of La Singlela, her movement and body control, the thud of her heels as she violently kicks the tracks to feel the vibrations, the music that fills the film are the elements that draw our attention to her when we learn about her life. The rich archival material – cinematography was the first to discover her – feeds the myth of the Spanish dancer who suddenly stopped dancing in her 30s. The film takes us from the slums of Barcelona to the clubs of Madrid and Germany, to Dali and Marcel Duchamp, from the watchful eye of her agent father to a mixture of flamenco and jazz and back to the present day.

An interesting element of the film is that it is a mix of fiction and documentary. The director not only relies on the power of her story, but also creates a film about the research she did to find the 75-year-old Singla. This format sometimes achieves its purpose by emphasizing the dramatic elements of the film, but other times it presents us with awkward moments and “staging” scenes that help advance the plot but lack credibility.

The life of La Single is a story of strength and the will to live. The intensity with which the young Spaniard dances in the black-and-white videos also hides a darker side, and perhaps what creeps in throughout the film, but is never openly acknowledged, is a history of abuse. Her wild look is at the same time the look of despair. It looks like today. He asks to be caught somewhere.