Picasso Presents Guernika

The Instituto Cervantes presents the documentary Picasso Presents Guernika. Written by Begoña Echeverria and directed by Annika Speer, Picasso Presents Gernika explores the child refugee crisis resulting from Hitler’s 1937 bombing of the Basque town Gernika and Picasso’s artistic response, Guernica. Drawing from a 2022 reading staged at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on World Refugee Day, the film weaves primary source material and documentation with imaginative fiction to consider the connections between war, art and human suffering: What does it take for a mother to give up her child to a foreign country in the hopes that she will have a greater opportunity there? What did it take for Picasso to give up his masterpiece only to see its message repeatedly go unheeded? How can we begin to address the particularly horrific effects war has on women and children?

The screening is part of the activities related to the exhibition 'Mar de Sombras', which you can visit in our building until July 19, 2024.

Bios:

Begoña Echeverria, PhD is the daughter of Basque immigrants to southern California. A native Basque speaker with a PhD in Sociology, she is a Professor at the University of California Riverside’s School of Education. She is the playwright of the docudrama, Picasso Presents Gernika, the author of the book “Witches” and Wily Women: Saving Noka through Basque Folklore and Song, and the novel The Hammer of Witches. She is also a singer-songwriter with the Basque-American musical trio, NOKA, with over 60 performances, including at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress. Her research on Basque language, culture, and identity has been published in academic journals in education, sociolinguistics, and anthropology.

Annika Speer, PhD is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator specializing in theatre, communication, and gender studies. A professor in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production at the University of California Riverside, Speer runs the public speaking program and is the Co-Director for the Public Speaking Initiative (a UC-Wide program that prioritizes interdisciplinary training in embodied performance). She is the director and co-producer of Picasso Presents Gernika and has worked as a dramaturgical researcher and script consultant for films. Her research has been published in academic journals in theatre, communication, gender studies, and pedagogy and she has directed plays as fundraisers for activist-oriented groups such as Planned Parenthood and Women Help Women.