Franco dictatorship resistance cinema screens in Berlin

Berlin (ACN).- The Babylon Cinema of Berlin will screen 11 Catalan films produced during the Franco regime starting on the 4th of October. The title of the film series is ‘Clandestí: Invisible Catalan Cinema during Franco’. The film series will exhibit the most ‘radical, transgressive and underground’ cinema produced during the 60s and 70s in Catalonia. “It is a recognition that has been necessary for us”, said the director of the film ‘Lock Out’, Antoni Padrós

The exhibition ‘focuses on a generation of independent filmmakers whose innate unwillingness to conform with fascist Franco’s regime forced them to produce, distribute, and exhibit radical films in Catalonia, with the furtive hope of sending them into the rest of Spain.’

Some of the films that will be shown in the series include 'El sopar' by Pere Portabella, 'Sexperiencias' by José María Nunes, 'Lock Out' by Antoni Padrós, '52 domingos’ by Llorenç Soler, 'Lejos de los árboles' by Jacinto Esteva Grewe and 'El campo para el hombre' by Helena Lumbreras and Mariano Lisa, among others.

One of the programmers of the cycle, Manuel Barrios, believes that the films “are an example and a testimony” to the dictatorship. “The Franco regime is one of the better known events in our history on an international level”, he added. “It must be rescued as political and cultural patrimony of our country”.

The film series was first presented in May of 2009 by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York. Istanbul has also shown the cycle of films. The series is scheduled to go on to cities like London, Toronto, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.