Les Mamàs belgues

La guerra cotidiana

Documentary about the evacuation in different countries, during the Spanish civil war, of thousands of Spanish children to remove them from the conflict. Approximately three thousand children were welcomed by the Soviet Union. Some of these children, now elderly people, tell us about their experiences during this trip that originally was to be a temporary evacuation and which many could not return until twenty years later.

Exilio. El exilio republicano español (1939-1978)

La batalla del Ebro

In the mountains of Madrid, Spain, a railway track on an abandoned bridge and a poem erased from the wall of a ruined building reveal a deliberately silenced story: the system established by Franco's dictatorship after the civil war (1936-39) that allowed hundreds of companies to use thousands of convicted Republicans as slave labor.

Dix Jours dans la guerre d'Espagne

Presas de Franco

Brigadistas

It tells the story of honorary consul Porfirio Smerdou, who saved the lives of 567 people in the Civil War.

The story of the pioneering electronic composer Ramón Sender Barayón. From his escape from the Spanish Civil War to the California of psychedelia, hippies and counterculture.

Documentary that recovers the memory of the neighbors who were victims of Franco's repression in the Tiétar Valley and the Sierra de San Vicente, in the province of Toledo, and surrounding towns. Many of them are listed as missing: they were made to disappear at dawn and their families never saw them again.

The amazing story of Cifesa, a mythical film production company founded in Valencia by the Casanova family that managed to dominate the box office during the turbulent times of the Second Spanish Republic, the carnage of the Civil War and the hardships of the long post-war period and Franco's dictatorship — and survive until the sixties, when Spain was timidly beginning to change.

After the discovery of a suitcase hidden in the family home of Francisco Martínez Gascón, known as Kautela, a photojournalist who lived through the Spanish Civil War from the perspective of the rebel side, his granddaughter decides to carry out an investigation into his life and work.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Second World War (1939-1945), around three thousand people managed to elude their pursuers, and probably also avoided being killed, thanks to the heroic and very efficient efforts of the Ponzán Team, a brave group of people — mountain guides, forgers, safe house keepers and many others —, led by Francisco Ponzán Vidal, who managed to save their lives, both on one side and the other of the border between Spain and France.

A particular reading of the forties and fifties in Spain, the hard years of famine and repression after the massacre of the Civil War, through popular culture: songs, newspapers and magazines, movies and newsreels.

The Colegio de Arquitectos de Catalunya commissioned Pere Portabella to make this film for the Joan Miró retrospective exhibit in 1969. There were heated discussions on whether it would be prudent to screen the film during the exhibit. Portabella took the following stance: "either both films are screened or they don't screen any" and, finally, both Miro l'Altre and Aidez l'Espagne were shown. The film was made by combining newsreels and film material from the Spanish Civil War with prints by Miró from the series "Barcelona" (1939-1944). The film ends with the painter's "pochoir" known as Aidez l'Espagne.

1939. Thousands of refugees were concentrated in the last republican sectors of Catalonia to cross into France. Through the Camprodon Valley, in the Pyrenean region of Ripollés, some 100,000 people crossed to the neighboring country: civilians, military, international brigades, including doctors and wounded. The war in Spain was ending, but soon another would begin. 100,000 people left their homes behind. Many would return, others would continue the fight.

During the Spanish Civil War, more than 500 young Spanish pilots went through the Russian Aviation School in Kirovabad, former capital of the current Republic of Azerbaijan. Once the Spanish war was over, some of them remained in Soviet territory and continued their fight against Fascism on the side of the Russian army.

The documentary film by director Bartomeu Vilà relives the experiences of one of the last cinematographers of the Republic, Joan Mariné, exceptional witness to a moment in the history of Catalan cinema that, despite the economic precariousness, the lack of means and the difficult international circumstances, was characterized by its high production, never surpassed, and its innovation in forms and contents. Through the memories and experiences of Joan Mariné (Barcelona, ​​1920), the documentary takes a tour of the films he filmed during those years of contention, both with the Sindicat d'Espectacles de la CNT/FAI, and later with the production company of the Republican Generalitat, Laya Films.

A true story: some years ago, I paid one euro for a handbag in an informal auction in Valencia. When I came home, I found inside the handbag lots of papers. Amongst them, two letters dated 1946, unsent. Their author announced his imminent suicide, due to the negative effects of war, prison and the lost of his family. El ultimo abrazo (The last embrace) is a short documentary film about our research, from the moment we found the letters until we find out who had written these letters, what had driven him to take his own life and why were both letters together and unsent.