One. Two. Three. Four. Silence.
When Antonia Singla stepped on stage, she did so without hearing the music. Born deaf into a Romani family on the outskirts of Barcelona, La Singla achieved international fame at 17, captivating audiences with her astonishingly passionate performances.
La Singla moved literally to the beat of her inner rhythm, with a commanding presence matched by her powerful gaze, taking hold of the flamenco world with a dynamism never experienced before. Yet, at the very peak of her fame, she disappeared, and decades later she has been all but forgotten. Half a century on, a young woman sets out to search for Antonia and uncover the roots of La Singla's passion.
Paloma Zapata's hybrid film interweaves past and present, combining archive footage with passionate music and sound. Through a captivating exploration of dance as expression, movement as experiment and performance as rage, La Singla celebrates and preserves the legacy of one of the greatest flamenco dancers of all time.
This Spanish-German co-production premiered in Germany under the tagline "Searching for Sugar Man goes flamenco."
La Singla is a production by La Fábrica Naranja in co-production with the German company Inselfilm Produktion. Selected as the opening film of the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival 2023, it has travelled to more than 40 international festivals and won over 20 awards. It is distributed in more than 15 countries and broadcast on ARTE, NHK, ZDF, YLE, Movistar+ and Canal Sur.
One of the Spanish music documentaries with the greatest international reach of recent years. Available on VOD in Spain and in international distribution.
Original music by Juliane Heinemann
With the support of
