Cartas Vivas

Instituto Cervantes, in collaboration with the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain, presents a new chapter of the Carta Vivas project, curated by Professor Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles. These three series of audiovisual cartasvivas focus on three key women essential to understanding the evolution of the feminist movement during the dictatorship and the beginning of the transition in Spain: María Campo Alange (María Laffitte) (1902–1986), founder of the Seminar for the Sociological Study of Women and a prolific writer, portrayed by Ascen López with a script based on her memoirs; Consuelo Berges (1899–1988), an adventurous writer who survived the dictatorship thanks to her extensive work as a translator, with Maite Jiménez dramatizing a script drawn from various correspondence archives and interviews; and finally Lilí Álvarez (1905–1998), known as “the señorita” at Wimbledon, with Montserrat Roig de Puig capturing the temperament of this athlete and theologian who advocated women’s emancipation through the liberation and strengthening of the body. From the inner exile of Berges the translator, to Campo Alange—who, at the end of her life, confessed the impact that the lack of sexual education had on her life and feminist commitment—and to Lilí Álvarez’s refusal to regard the female body as sinful, the discreet existence these women led during the dictatorship hides three powerful pioneering temperaments. Ascen López, Maite Jiménez and Montse Roig bring us closer to their lights and shadows in CARTASVIVAS, a library of women’s memory in an online audiovisual format, a project by the University of Exeter and Fundación Banco de Santander.