Sexual and Gender Revolts: Vámos, Bárbara (Cecilia Bartolomé, 1978)

It is not easy to avoid the label of pioneer when talking about Cecilia Bartolomé. Her career is full of those groundbreaking “firsts” that make history, from her short film Margarita y el Lobo (1968), where she introduced an unambiguous reference to lesbianism into audiovisual work under Franco’s regime, to the mid-nineties with Lejos de África (1996), in which she dared to address Spain’s colonial legacy in Equatorial Guinea through her personal memories. Who else but her could have made a feminist statement like Vámonos, Bárbara in 1978? Synopsis: Ana, daughter of a bourgeois family, decides to separate from her husband, with whom she barely has a relationship because he is always abroad. Ana works at an advertising agency and wants to change her life. Her mother criticizes her, saying Ana always does everything too late and poorly. Ana packs her bags and takes her twelve-year-old daughter Bárbara on vacation, intending to leave the past behind and live a freer, less conventional, and unbound life. [Source: RTVE].