Rafael Alberti

North Sudan, summer 1923. King Alfonso XIII of Spain captures an enormous African elephant, an apparently irrelevant act that, however, will be paramount to understand the Spain of 20th century; an animal from far lands that will become a symbol of the Second Spanish Republic, the communist movement and many other things; a royal hunting that marks the beginning of a bizarre story of jealousy, passion, political intrigues and taxidermy.

Completed a year after his death in 1983, this program presents the definitive biography of Spain’s renowned Surrealist film maker and iconoclast, Luis Buñuel. Using photographs, film excerpts, and numerous interviews with Bunuel, the video chronicles his early friendships with Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca, the stormy reactions to many of his groundbreaking films, and the influence he has had on international cinema. Among those interviewed are directors Federico Fellini, John Huston, and Jose L. Saenz De Heredia; Buñuel’s wife, Jeanne Rucar, and son Juan; actor Francisco Rabal; and Octavio Paz.

The second part of the documentary "Después de...", "Atado y bien atado" presents the sensitivity that existed in different areas of Spanish society in its young democracy concerning its future, where the fear of a sector was underlying ultra-conservative before the construction of a different country and that already announced the attempted coup d'état of February 1981. Without a doubt, this work —which could not be released until 1983— places Cecilia Bartolomé and her brother as precursors of the social documentary that will have an enormous development and that today continues to be crucial in Spanish film production.

Short film about the life and work of the poet Murilo Mendes.

Based on two poems by Rafael Alberti, Garabatos (“Scribbles”) is a reflection on childhood, education and the demise of innocence. Music by Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer and Edgard Varèse.

Images and verses to Christmas

The alleged uncontrolled romance between a young girl forced to marry another and the poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer.

The young widow of the viceroy of Peru, facing the dismal prospect of either a convent or a marriage of convenience, sets out to conquer a handsome officer, pretending she’s a duende, a ghost. Voted the best Argentine film of 1945, La dama duende is a beautifully crafted comedy of errors, based on the 17th-century play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The most ambitious production of Estudios San Miguel, it was brought to the screen mostly by Spaniards exiled in Argentina as a result of the Civil War.

Documentary short made during the Spanish Civil War.