Alicia Cifredo She was already enjoying a well-earned reputation as a film and television actress, as well as a screenwriter and director, when a few years ago her childhood came back to her, when she first picked up a guitar and tried to play a few chords. “I had a cousin who played rock and I wanted to imitate him, but they put me in guitar classes.” flamenco"because there was nowhere to study that music in Cádiz. I never got around to learning either of them, but it seems I was left with a nagging desire."
More or less around that time, around 2002, he met the woman from Puerto Antonia Jimenez, and she was surprised that she was the first professional guitarist she had met… Or had she met any other before? “I was sure they wouldn't be the only ones, so I started looking at newspaper archives, museums… I met with flamencologists and other experts, and thanks to the work of many people who were already working on the subject, we began to put the topic together.” It was the beginning of a long and exciting journey that would be titled Female guitarists, where reasonable questions were asked, such as why women had always been excluded from that profession, or whether it had not always been that way.
Along with Antonia Jiménez herself, figures such as Pilar Alonso, Noa Drezner, Bettina Flatter, Davinia Ballesteros, Afra Rubino, Salvadora Galán, Celia Morales, Caroline Planté and Mercedes Luján, among others. And although it was a debate that had been going on for a long time, the premiere came to highlight once again (already Enrique Morente had drawn attention to the absence of female guitarists in those same years), and with the strength of the seventh art, lthe need to rethink the flamenco from the female perspective.
Born in the capital of Cadiz, Alicia Cifredo Chacón She boasted about having been able to study thanks to public scholarships, as she came from a humble family. She drew on creativity out of a sheer need to feel loved, as she herself confessed, and found in early reading the answer to all her childhood desires. At eleven, she took a course at school on how to create a film storyboard and knew that one day this would be her path.
"I didn't come from the flamenco And now I am happy that there is something new and wonderful in my life, commented with a big smile this woman from Cadiz who, almost without intending to, wrote her name in the long and fruitful history of what jondo»
He wanted to study journalism in Madrid, but ended up enrolling in Hispanic Philology in Cádiz, a career that she combined with ballet, contemporary dance, and theater courses, as well as launching the occasional fanzine. In 1987 she moved to Seville and joined the Theatre Institute, but he soon abandoned it to dedicate himself professionally to acting and dramatic writing.
Already in the 90s, he was involved in multiple projects. He wrote the script for the short film Short panties, Pending powders (In collaboration with Nathalie Sesena y Manolo Caro), The true limbo, Oh peyote; From Serrano to Yeserías in a couple of days, and joined the team of scriptwriters for the series Castles in the air, directed by an old friend from his Seville years, the actor Pepe Quero.
Likewise, as a director she tried out such brave proposals as Alice in love with a God, the clip Snacks or the feature film Your face sounds familiar, premiered at the Alcances exhibition in 2011. However, his most acclaimed work was the aforementioned Female guitarists, which in 2015 received six Goya nominations and was awarded the Silver Biznaga at the Málaga Film Festival and a Special Jury Mention at the Bogotá International Film Festival, in addition to touring Mexico, Chile, El Salvador, Uruguay, Colombia, and Luxembourg, among other countries.
For the general public, however, Alicia Cifredo will always be one of those familiar faces that appear in countless films and series, in her case since the Dolores of The Washington Wolves a Malaka, via Paco's Men, Companions, Hours of Light, La Tama, Belmonte, Strangers, El Bola, Shaky Carmine, The Heart of the Earth, Like Wings in the Wind, Countdown, We're All Invited...
“I didn't come from the flamenco And now I am happy that there is something new and wonderful in my life," said with a big smile this woman from Cadiz who, almost without intending to, wrote her name in the long and fruitful history of what jondo.
