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El jugador de ajedrez: 27
Let’s talk about its
possibilities in the classroom
Fernando Escribano Martín
El jugador de ajedrez (unofficial English title The Chess Player) was released in 2017.
It was directed by Luis Oliveros, and part of the script was written by Julio Castedo,
who had written the novel of the same title in 2009. It starred Marc Clotet and Melina
Matthews and was produced by Juan Antonio Casado, a teacher and film producer.
The recent success of Netflix’s mini-series The Queen’s Gambit once again reminds
us of the educational potential of chess. This worldwide-known board game is one of
the most iconic games of our history. It has a mythical past that is part of a story that
also makes it unique. El jugador de ajedrez tells the story of a master of this sport, Diego
Padilla, who is somewhat implicated in the political events of the Second Spanish
Republic and the subsequent Civil War. Fleeing from one broken world, he arrives at
another one with a similar fate: Paris during the Second World War.
El jugador de ajedrez can be studied in various ways, ones that can be used in the
classroom and as teaching tools. There is a key idea in chess, a lasting sentiment, which is
that in a world that is falling apart, where everything you had is worthless, where nothing
is what it was and everything you believed in has been destroyed, chess enables you
to organize yourself, structures you, makes you resurface, it is a lifesaver. It is thanks
to chess that the protagonist is alive, is saved and will later be reunited with his family.
