Lost 1896 Film Suggests Tenerife Was Early Cinema Hub
A newly identified 1896 Lumière film, "Island Women of Tenerife Supplying Coal to Fleet Ships," suggests filmmaking in the Canary Islands began earlier than previously thought, potentially placing Tenerife among cinema's first documentary subjects.
The history of filmmaking in the Canary Islands might have started earlier than we thought. Well before the 20th-century films we know about, a short film from 1896 suggests Tenerife was there at the very start of cinema. Its title tells us a lot: "Island Women of Tenerife Supplying Coal to Fleet Ships."
The film itself no longer exists, but we know it was real. It was listed in a Lumière Cinematograph program, published by the Mexican newspaper El Universal on December 15, 1896. This program announced the film's showing the day before. For researchers, this is a crucial clue. It suggests a camera filmed scenes in Tenerife in the late 1800s, right when cinema was just beginning worldwide.
If it's confirmed that the film was shot on the island, this discovery would push back the start of cinema history in the Canary Islands by at least a year. Until now, the earliest known film showing in Santa Cruz de Tenerife was in April 1897. But this 1896 film would mean Tenerife was a film location much earlier, just as cinema was starting to spread across Europe and America.
The scene described in the title is both simple and telling: Canarian women moving coal to supply warships. María Dolores Cabrera Déniz, a Geography and History graduate from ULL, wrote an excellent article that cleared up some questions. For example, people wondered if women really did such tough jobs back then. In the late 1800s, many men left the islands, money was tight, and the ports were very busy. This meant many women had to do extremely hard physical work. It wasn't unusual; it was part of daily life.
The study suggests the film wasn't made by famous early filmmakers like Gabriel Veyre or Alexandre Promio. Instead, it points to a name almost unknown until recently: Vincent Billard, a cameraman for the Lumière company. Recently found documents and letters show that Billard was travelling to Argentina in November 1896, and his journey included a stop in Tenerife. At that time, several warships were anchored in Santa Cruz port, which matches the scene in the film.
Some researchers have suggested the film might have been shot in American ports with many Canarian people, like Veracruz or La Guaira. However, the study's author argues that the film's title clearly points to Tenerife. She also highlights that a film from remote islands in the late 1800s would need a clear title to tell an international audience where it was filmed.
Nothing is absolutely certain: the film hasn't been found, and the information we have is incomplete. But the research has brought us closer to an answer. Everything points to a Lumière camera capturing a powerful everyday scene in Santa Cruz port in November 1896: island women loading coal for warships.
If this idea is finally confirmed, Tenerife wouldn't just be an early witness to cinema, but also a key part of one of its very first documentaries. This film would have captured on screen, for the first time in the Canary Islands, the often-unseen work of many women throughout the islands' history.