Parallel Montage. Visions of Spanish Cinema during the Democratic Transition (1973-2023)
Fotografía: Anna Turbau. Diseño: Lola Montero (Instituto Cervantes)
The films made during the years of the last Franco regime, the Transition and the first steps of democracy, contain the keys to understanding that historical moment. However, the cultural processes that opened then, from disenchantment to La Movida, the political forms that emerged with the change of regime, such as the new electoral system or the territorial division of the country, and the social agents that gained prominence at the time, such as the feminist movement or environmentalism, have not only been the subject of debate and review since then, but have also systematically contributed to the development of Spanish society as we know it today.
This program presents an inevitably partial yet insightful view, of the Spanish filmography during the Democratic Transition, approached from an expanded perspective. On the one hand, the aim is to broaden the cinematic corpus beyond the canonical titles of the period, which, although still inescapable, now establish a new dialogue with lesser-known films from the peripheries of commercial cinema, and which are of great interest for the understanding of the period. On the other hand, we propose opening a temporal window to the present, that incorporates films that deal with Spain’s cinema and history during the transition years, seen through the distance and the critical vision shaped by the passing of years. The result is a selection of films arranged around five thematic axes, which, from the Transition, are projected into the future, questioning our present.
The five thematic core ideas are structured around the following titles: “The seams of war”, “Sexual and gender revolts”, “Modern Spain”, “Politics in the street”, and “This land is mine”. The screenings illustrate each of them, which are further developed in the publication that accompanies this series.
