Other Screenings
Clandestí: Invisible Catalan Cinema Under Franco, BFI Southbank, LondonNov 26–Nov 30
Clandestí: Invisible Catalan Cinema Under Franco focuses on a generation of independent filmmakers whose innate unwillingness to conform with facist Franco’s regime forced them to produce, distribute, and exhibit radical films in Catalonia, with the furtive hope of sending them into the rest of Spain. Connected with workers’ movements and political parties, these authors put their images in the service of anti-Franco causes, and even managed to organize a distribution network through recreation centers, private homes, cinema clubs, universities, social and cultural associations, and even parochial schools.
Many of these films have no credits, in order to protect the identities of their participants. While this body of work represents a margin of Spanish film history, it nevertheless contains some of the most crucial, first-hand documents of the end of the dictatorship, revealing problems of housing and social services, immigration, the fate of political prisoners, and restrictions on expression and free speech.
These filmmakers, members of the first generation who didn’t fight the Civil War, also chronicled the ongoing psychological, social, economic, and cultural effects of the regime. Forced to choose between exile and intellectual annihilation, they instead expressed themselves, putting their art in the service of a political movement that altered the course of Spanish history.
Lorenzo Soler (filmmaker), Antoni Padrós (filmmaker) and Manuel Barrios (co-curator) will introduce the films.
SIDE EVENTS:Discussion with Vicente J. Benet : Radical Politics and Experimental Film in Franco’s Spain.Thu 25 Nov, 18:10, NFT3Los Encuentros de Pamplona of 1972 at the Museo Reina Sofía was the most important exhibit of avant garde art and film in Spain during the Franco dictatorship; they revealed for the first time to a general audience the conceptual films being made as manifestos against the dictatorship. We welcome Vicente J. Benet of the Universitat Jaume I (Castellón) to introduce the clandestine films of this period, and the contexts of their production and reception.
Screening: Crónica d’una Mirada: Clandestine Filmmaking in Franco’s Spain 1960-1975, by Manuel Barrios Sat 27 Nov, 14:30, NFT3Two episodes from this award-winning, 6-part documentary, will be screened. The screening of Crónica d’una mirada will be followed by a panel discussion with filmmakers Antonio Padrós, Lorenzo Soler and Manuel Barrios, professor Vicente J. Benet and historian and Hispanist Paul Preston chaired by Marta Sánchez (co-curator and director of Pragda).
Where
BFI Southbank
Belvedere Road, South Bank, London
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Schedule
PROGRAM I: THE ONGOING POLITICAL STRUGGLE
Protest February 1/8 1976, Anonymous
Long Journey to Rage, Llorenç Soler
El Sopar, Pere Portabella Fri 26 Nov, 18:10h (Q&A with Llorenç Soler), NFT3 / Sun 28 Nov, 20:30h, NFT3
PROGRAM II: AESTHETIC SUBVERSION: ANARCHY AND ABSURDITY
Lock Out, Antoni Padrós Sat 27 Nov, 17:20h (Q&A with Antoni Padrós), NFT3 / Mon 29, 20:30h, NFT3
PROGRAM III: COUNTRYSIDE AND THE CITY: THE STRUGGLE TO MAKE A LIVING
Mountain, Anonymous
52 Sundays, Llorenç Soler
Field for Men, Class Film Collective (Helena Lumbreras and Mariano Lisa) Sun 28 Nov, 15:00, NFT3 / Tue 30 Nov, 18:10h, NFT3
PROGRAM IV: MORALITY AND SOCIETY
Happy Parallel, Enric Ripoll i Freixes and Josep Maria Ramon
Far from the Trees, Jacinto Esteva-Grew Sun 28 Nov, 17:50h, NFT3 / Tue 30 Nov, 20:20h, NFT3
PROGRAM V: OVER THE EDGE: THE AESTHETICS OF OUTRAGE
…and then none will laugh, Manel Esteban
Sexperiencias, Jose Maria Nunes Sat 27 Nov, 20:30h, NFT3 / Mon 29 Nov, 18:20h, NFT2
Most of these films will be shown in digital formats, due to the difficulties of preserving them on their original formats.