Fierce: A Porn Revolution

A journey of years through many countries and film festivals; a nostalgic, adrenaline-fueled and rock-spirited immersion into the universe of cinephilia, in search of genre specialists, fans and filmmakers who speak of their shared passion for fantastic cinema; a whole international spiritual community united under the cathartic shadow of horror.

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Spain, 1960. French student Monique Roumette lives in Madrid on a scholarship. Thanks to a friend who works in the production company Uninci, she has the privilege of attending the shooting of Viridiana, a film directed by Luis Buñuel.

Italy, 1970. An increasing legion of harmless warriors begins a peaceful struggle for sexual freedom through pornography, shaking and shocking religious authorities and conservative political institutions. They are ironic, happy, crazy. They are dreamers, defenders of definitive communion between body and soul. But they were censored and humiliated. They were mistreated and arrested for demanding loud a new cultural renaissance.

Shirley MacLaine was the product of a strict middle-class background from which she and her brother, the future actor Warren Beatty, escaped into the fantasy world of show-biz. Her ballet training and her long-legged pixie charm led to rapid success on Broadway in musical comedy. Inevitably, Hollywood called and by 1955 Shirley was cast in Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry." It wasn't too long before the fine dramatic roles also came to her opposite the most popular leading men of the time, like Fred MacMurray, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood and Robert Mitchum.

A short documentary about the rapidly disappearing era of heritage movie palaces and the film going experience once offered within those hallowed walls.

The pianist Miguel Ángel Lozano embarks on a personal and artistic journey with the purpose of reconstructing the life of his grandmother, Maria Forteza (1910-60), singer and pioneer of Spanish sound films.

France, 1974. The erotic film Emmanuelle, directed by Just Jaeckin, breaks all records for cinema attendance: the story of the creation of a sensual epic that marked a turning point in the struggle for sexual emancipation.

In 1956, actress and Hollywood star Grace Kelly (1929-82), then at the height of her film career, unexpectedly dropped everything to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Jinx, an American journalist and friend of the future princess, accompanied her on her journey to the wedding and covered the sensational event.

What was the role of women in Spanish cinema from the 1930s to the present explained through fragments of different films, both fiction and non-fiction. (Followed by “Manda huevos,” 2016.)

Une vie classée X

The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.

An audiovisual investigation into the way Spanish cinema has represented its audience throughout history, and a tribute to those who, for over a hundred years, have inhabited the theaters, mutually nurturing their deepest dreams and aspirations.

A peculiar, meticulous, vocationally archeological account of the professional life of the actor, Spanish by birth, Argentinean by adoption, Narciso Ibañez Menta (1912-2004), spiritual disciple of Lon Chaney, the new man of a thousand faces, master of horror, star of Argentinean theater, cinema and television for decades.

The legendary British-American actress Olivia de Havilland (1916-2020), who conquered Hollywood in the thirties, challenged the film industry when, in 1943, she took on the all-powerful producer Jack Warner in court, forever changing the ruthless working conditions that restricted the essential rights and freedom of artists.

The Story Of X takes you to the earliest days of adult films when men peddled stag reels and projectors out of the trunks of their cars, then through the movie house years to the arrival of the home video business, and now the Internet. Meet the men behind the camera, such as "King of Sexploitation" Dave Friedman and the preeminent breast man Russ Meyer. Considered pariahs at the time, they're now hailed as pioneers in the fight against censorship. The Story of X visits the 60s when women's rights, not nudity, became the issue and recounts porn's arrival in Hollywood, led by director Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris. In the 70s, several groundbreaking films, including Behind The Green Door featuring Marilyn Chambers and Deep Throat featuring Linda Lovelace, took the genre to a new level.

Forty years later, Guillermo Montesinos, the actor who played José María el Cepa in The Cuenca Crime (1980), directed by Pilar Miró, returns to the various locations where the shooting of the mythical film, narrating the infamous Grimaldos case (1910), took place.

Legendary film editor and sound designer Walter Murch talks about his work and philosophy. (Based on over 50 hours of Murch's lectures, interviews, and commentaries.)

Counter Shot: Departure of the Filmmakers

Omnibus: François Truffaut