Realism in Spanish Cinema of the 50´s

The 1950s and 1960s saw the establishment and rise of a movement of young Spanish film directors who were clearly influenced by Italian neo-realism. With the intention of narrowing the gap between cinematic fiction and reality, they insisted on the need for the cinema industry to move away from making historical films with strong patriotic values towards much more critical detective films and to films of wide thematic and narrative content. Realism in Spanish Cinema (1951 – 1963) [El realismo en el cine español (1951-1963)] is the title of the season which opens in the Cervantes Institute in Manchester  with a program made up of five emblematic films from this decade.