For his latest drama, Corneliu Porumboiu revived a language unique to the valleys of La Gomera in the Canary Islands; a steep learning curve for his actors – and our writer

Try to imagine the least film-noir scene possible and you might come up with a group of five-year-olds learning to whistle. It is late morning, pre-lockdown, in a classroom at Nereida Díaz Abreu school on La Gomera in the Canary Islands, and the teacher – a bent knuckle crammed in his mouth – is relaying instructions in a piercing, swooping, set of whistles. The kids look quizzically skywards, then collapse in hysterics, although most eventually nail it.

“Touch your left ear with your right hand,” the teacher reiterates in Spanish.

Related: The Whistlers (La Gomera) review – thrilling Romanian corrupt-cop noir

We say to the kids: when you go to Tenerife and say you’re from La Gomera, people will ask you if you can whistle