You don’t always expect much from a “premiere” in Tenerife.
A few people turn up, polite applause, drink afterwards… job done.
This one was a bit different.
Full house at TEA
Let’s get this out of the way first…TEA stands for Tenerife Espacio de las Artes.
Back to the Roots premiered on 8th January at TEA in Santa Cruz… and it was packed.
Properly packed.
No empty seats, no people drifting in late or slipping out halfway through. The kind of atmosphere where you can tell something’s actually landed.
And it wasn’t just a film screening either.
It turned into more of a proper cultural meet-up. Filmmakers, artists, locals… all in one place, actually paying attention.
That alone says quite a bit.
A story that feels real
The documentary follows Birane Wane, a Senegalese musician, travelling from Seville back to Senegal.
Sounds simple enough.
But it’s not really about the journey… it’s about everything behind it.
Identity, migration, belonging… all the big topics, but handled without trying too hard to impress anyone.
No over-polishing. No forced emotion.
Just real people, real conversations.
Along the way, you hear from artists, activists and local fishermen… voices that don’t usually get a look in.
Which is probably why it works.
Not your typical “migration story”
This is where most documentaries lose people.
They either go too heavy… or they dance around the subject.
From what’s come out of this one, it sits somewhere in the middle.
Direct. Honest. Not dressed up to make it easier to watch.
It looks at why people move, what they deal with, and what they go back to.
No neat ending. Just reality.
Canary Productions doing it properly
Credit where it’s due.
Canary Productions aren’t just putting content out for the sake of it.
They’re focusing on stories that actually mean something… and backing them up with decent production.
That balance is harder than it sounds.
It’s easy to make something that looks good.
It’s much harder to make something people are still thinking about when they leave the room.
What this really means
Tenerife gets boxed in as a holiday island.
Sun, hotels, cheap flights… and not much else.
But there’s another side to it that most people never see.
A creative side. A cultural side.
Stuff like this reminds you it’s there.
A full room. A proper story. People actually engaged.
Not a bad result for a Tuesday night in Santa Cruz.
If you want to dive a bit deeper into it, you can read the original article here.