Hola Yumbo
HOLA YUMBO
Shopping centre Yumbo on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria has traditionally been a top attraction for gay men from all over Europe. The question is: why, for God’s sake?
By day, the shopping centre that was constructed in 1982 and spans 20,000 square meters is one of Europe’s most depressing and ugly shopping centres. So how come gay men, who are known for their refined and trendy tastes, flock to this concrete jungle? What is the Yumbo’s secret?
That’s the fascinating question at the heart of the documentary Hola Yumbo, the concrete gay paradise on Gran Canaria.
The documentary follows four (extremely) loyal visitors of the concrete shopping centre: Kees and Theo, Victor and Andreas. They’re from the Netherlands and Germany. We see them at home, where they tell us a bit about their lives and their backgrounds. And we follow them on Gran Canaria in the Yumbo.
The visits of these visitors to the shopping centre are alternated with stories told by two of the shopping centre’s exploiters. We follow Phil, the British owner of Bunker, one of the largest cruise bars in the Yumbo. The other person is Frank, the Dutch owner of a bar called Adonis. He has been running his business in the Yumbo since 1994 and he knows the shopping centre’s history like no other.
The stories of all these lead characters are at times frank, hilarious, moving and surprising, making the documentary Hola Yumbo an extraordinary portrait of a unique, gay phenomenon.
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Tim DekkersDirectorPrEP&ME
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Mediabureau Onderste-BovenProducerPrEP&ME
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Project Type:Documentary
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Runtime:58 minutes
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Completion Date:February 23, 2020
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Production Budget:75,000 EUR
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Country of Origin:Netherlands
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Country of Filming:Germany, Netherlands, Spain
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Language:Dutch, English, German, Spanish
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Shooting Format:HD
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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Roze Filmdagen AmsterdamAmsterdam
Netherlands
August 29, 2020
Roze Filmdagen Amsterdam
Tim Dekkers started in the eighties as a reporter for the Dutch national newspaper Trouw. He switched in 1988 to national televison. For many years, he was a well known and respected journalist, dealing with domestic and foreign topics.
From 2005 till 2010 he was a freelance correspondent in Sydney, Australia. He worked for Dutch, Belgian and Danish media.
The last decade, Dekkers was owner of his Media Office Onderste-Boven. He made many video productions.
The documentary PrEP&ME about the new hiv-prevention pill PrEP is the first documentary he produced, filmed and edited himself. It was shown in 2017 thee times during the 20th Roze Filmdagen in Amsterdam (Pink Film Festival) and was a big success. The documentary was also selected for film festivals in the USA (Docs without Borders), Uruguay, Argentina, Germany (Hannover Cologne and Dortmund), Spain and Serbia.
Hola Yumbo is his second documentary and would have had his premiere in March in Amsterdam. But due to the Corona-crisis, the premiere in Amsterdam was cancelled.