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 became a milestone in the cultural history of Sepharad. There he produced 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 Madrid, Jerusalem, Oxford, New York, and Turin.

The film follows the career of this scholar 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 surviving copies in universities and archives worldwide. Filming locations include the old synagogue of Híjar—the only one in Spain that retains medieval painted decoration—the Four Sephardic Synagogues of Jerusalem, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

On September 19, the documentary will be screened in Girona at the historic Cinema Truffaut, in an event organized by the Museum of Jewish History of Girona. Located in the heart of the city, the museum is devoted to preserving and disseminating the legacy of Jewish life in medieval Girona, once home to one of the most vibrant Jewish quarters in Catalonia. The event will begin with a panel discussion featuring José Ángel Guimerá, the film’s director, and Asunción Blasco, Professor at the University of Zaragoza and leading expert on the figure of the printer. Following the discussion, the screening of Books: Alantansí’s Legacy will take place.

The Girona screening is part of the special tour of Books: Alantansí’s Legacy organized on the occasion of the European Days of Jewish Culture 2025. This itinerary also includes Casa Sefarad (Madrid), the Synagogue of El Tránsito (Toledo), the Archive of the Crown of Aragon (Barcelona), the Provincial Council of Huesca, and the Auditorium of the University of Zaragoza. A journey that invites audiences to rediscover, from Aragon to the world, the universal legacy of a Sephardic printer born in Huesca and established in Híjar.