The documentary Books: Alantansí’s Legacy, directed by the Aragonese filmmaker José Ángel Guimerá, restores the forgotten figure of Eliezer ben Abraham Alantansí, a pioneer of Hebrew printing in the Iberian Peninsula. Born in Huesca in the mid-15th century, he later moved to the town of Ixar (today Híjar, Teruel), where in 1482 he founded a printing workshop that would become a milestone in the cultural history of Sepharad. There he printed foundational works of Sephardic Judaism, such as the Tur Orah Hayim and the Hebrew Bible with the Five Megillot—true incunabula now preserved in major libraries in cities like Madrid, Jerusalem, Oxford, New York, and Turin.

The film traces the career of this erudite with entrepreneurial spirit, who worked under the protection of the first Duke of Híjar. His books, of exceptional typographic and aesthetic quality, attest to the refinement of a printer ahead of his time. The narrative blends docu-fiction scenes recreating his native Huesca, the synagogue, the workshop, and the Híjar printing press, with the research journey of historian Lucía Conte, who has tracked down surviving copies in universities and archives across the globe. Featured real-life locations include the old synagogue of Híjar—the only one in Spain that retains medieval painted decorations—the Four Sephardic Synagogues in Jerusalem, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

This September, the screening of Books: Alantansí’s Legacy at the Synagogue of El Tránsito will serve as the principal event of the European Days of Jewish Culture. Organized by the Ministry of Culture, it ushers in a special tour as part of the European Week of Jewish Culture: on September 10 at Casa Sefarad (Madrid), the 11th at the Synagogue of El Tránsito (Toledo), the 18th at the Archive of the Crown of Aragon (Barcelona), the 19th in Girona (Cinema Truffaut), the 25th in Huesca (Provincial Council), and the 26th at the Auditorium of the University of Zaragoza. This journey invites audiences to rediscover, from Aragon to the world, the universal legacy of a Sephardic printer born in Huesca and established in Híjar.

After the screening, there will be a panel discussion featuring: José Ángel Guimerá, the film’s director; Asunción Blasco, Professor at the University of Zaragoza and leading expert on the figure of the printer; and Dr. Javier Castaño, Senior Research Scientist in Jewish History at Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid, whose work focuses on medieval Iberian Jewry and socio-religious studies.