The Dénia volcano that transformed the city and took it to the Oscars

No, Dénia does not have any volcano. At least, today. But for a brief period, an eruption in the city terrified the residents, destroying the place forever and claiming the lives of thousands of inhabitants. We are talking, of course, about fiction. But one so well achieved that it led to the Oscar competition itself.

Scene from the movie East of Java filmed in the port of Dénia

At the end of the 60s, in 1967 specifically, Dénia had assumed a certain habit when it came to seeing film crews come and go. The city had been the setting for several films in recent years, so a new recording was nothing new. However, this does not mean that great expectations were not created around this type of productions, especially if they come from Hollywood itself and in which you can see faces that, although not stars, were familiar at the time.

This new American production that landed in Dénia was East of Java.

Train circulating in the port of Dénia for the film

Boarding in Krakatoa

What did Dénia have that, once again, Americans were interested in filming their latest production there? It wasn't because of its geographical similarity to Asia, where the story takes place, of course. Rather, it was due to the underdeveloped state of its spaces, where construction was still taking place and offered a blank canvas on which to capture everything that might cross the design teams' minds. Especially in the port area, as happened previously with Captain Jones.

Scene from East of Java filmed in Dénia

East of Java tells the tragedy of Krakatoa, in the Indian Ocean, where in August 1883 the Perbuatán volcano erupted, claiming the lives of 36.000 people and destroying a large part of the island. Those responsible for this disaster film ahead of the boom of the genre followed the advice of photography operator John Cabrera, linked to Dénia, to film in the capital of the Marina Alta, according to scholars Antoni Reig and Miquel Crespo in the book Dénia, ciutat film.

Actress from the film in front of the unrecognizable fish market, in a shot where you can see the Montgó in the background

At that time, the port did not have many buildings, being practically an empty esplanade. This allowed them to use it as they pleased, managing to convert the old market and its surroundings into an Asian street market, with a train that transported merchandise a few meters from the water. All this has been immortalized in the film, in the first minutes of which you can see what the port of Dénia looked like, although it is difficult to recognize it.

An Oscar movie

Throughout the film, which takes place almost entirely on the high seas, the denier coastline continues to appear in the distance, as does that of Mallorca, where some scenes were also filmed. In that land that pretended to be Krakatoa, the volcano ended up exploding, in a succession of images that would convince few now, but that at the time was the ultimate in special effects and allowed the film to compete in that category at the acclaimed gala. of the 1970 Oscars. The award finally went to the futurist Trapped in space.