This documentary features the story of Jules Paivio, the last living Canadian volunteer of the infamous Mackenzie-Papineau Battallion of the “International Brigades”. When Jules left from his home near Port Arthur (Thunder Bay), Ontario, his father, a famous Finnish poet, wrote a lasting lament: “To My Son In Spain”. In 1936-37, 1700 Canadians volunteered to fight with the Spanish people against a fascist coup d’etat led by elements of the Spanish Army. Backed by Musselini and Hitler, the fascists were bent on overthrowing Spain’s democratically elected socialist government and replacing it with military and church rule. It could be argued this conflict marked the true beginning of what would become World War II.
A particular reading of the hard years of famine, repression and censorship after the massacre of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), through popular culture: songs, newspapers and magazines, movies and newsreels.
Guernica: El último exiliado
Almas sin fronteras: La historia de la Brigada Abraham Lincoln
The adventures of Guido Picelli, a man who was a leading light in the history of twentieth-century Italy and Europe. Guido Picelli fought untiringly for the affirmation of social justice and opposed every form of totalitarianism.
Las cuatro esquinas y Madrid
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.
Spain, April 14, 1931. The Second Republic is born. From the beginning, the writer Miguel de Unamuno is considered one of the ethical pillars of the new regime. Five years later, on December 31, 1936, a few months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Unamuno dies at his home in Salamanca, capital of the rebel side, led by General Francisco Franco, and main center of dissemination of its propaganda apparatus.
An account of the brief life of the writer Albert Camus (1913-1960), a Frenchman born in Algeria: his Spanish origin on the isle of Menorca, his childhood in Algiers, his literary career and his constant struggle against the pomposity of French bourgeois intellectuals, his communist commitment, his love for Spain and his opposition to the independence of Algeria, since it would cause the loss of his true home, his definitive estrangement.
After fighting on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, a man goes into exile in France while his family waits for his return in a Catalan village.
A feature-length documentary based on film reports from the Spanish civil war.
Que mi nombre no se borre de la historia
Bajo el signo libertario is a propaganda documentary, with the script and direction of Les (known for his articles in Solidaridad Obrera and the magazine Espectáculo) whose central theme is the reconstruction of the development of life in a libertarian community in the Aragonese town of Pina de Ebro.
Presos del silencio
An audiovisual chronicle of the Spanish Civil War in Galicia. Memorias Rotas centers on a group of republican fighters leaded by Commander José Moreno. The group disappears as they fail trying to escape by sea in the border between Galicia and Asturias and nobody ever knows about them.
Más allá de la alambrada: la memoria del horror
La doble vida del faquir (The magicians) returns to the scene of a school in the Catalan town of Sant Julià de Vilatorta where, in 1937, in the midst of civil war, a film-maker in hiding and a group of orphaned children dressed up as sultans and explorers shot an exotic adventure film. The films protagonists relive those childhood days when they were able to switch their school smocks for oriental turbans, while reality imposed its own fancy dress ball with military uniforms and priests dressed in civilian garb.
In November 1936, a few months since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the government of the Second Republic moves to Valencia. In this situation, several Valencian artists and intellectuals decide to build four fallas — satirical plasterboard sculptures created to be burnt — to mock fascism.
La Tragédie des Brigades Internationales
The adventurous life of Natacha Rambova (1897-1966), an American artist, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, who reincarnated herself countless times: false Russian dancer, silent film actress, scenographer and costume designer, writer, spiritist, Egyptologist, indefatigable traveler, mysterious and curious; an amazing 20th century woman who created the myth of Rudolph Valentino.