At the start of 1939 an exodus of nearly 500,000 Spanish Republicans, soldiers and civilians together, fleeing Franco's troops crossed the border to France. Louis Llech, a Perpignan based shopkeeper and enlightened amateur cineaste, owned a 16mm camera. Together with his friend Isambert, he filmed this extraordinary migration. Fascinated by the military aspect of this Retirada, he favoured shots of parades, of crowds, like those showing military equipment. He nonetheless also showed civilian distress, without insisting on its picturesque aspects, focussing more on images of the uninterrupted flow of refugees.
Obsessively referring to the traumas and wounds that the Spanish civil war (1936-39) and Franco's dictatorship (1939-75) caused in their day no longer serves to explain the impassable abyss of incomprehension and hatred that the abject policies and radical positions adopted by both the right and the left in recent decades have opened up before the citizens of a country that is barely known beyond hackneyed cultural clichés.
The Spanish journalist Manuel Chaves Nogales (1897-1944) was always there where the news broke out: in the fratricidal Spain of 1936, in Bolshevik Russia, in Fascist Italy, in Nazi Germany, in occupied Paris or in the bombed London of World War II; because his job was to walk, see and tell stories, and thus fight against tyrants, at a time when it was necessary to take sides in order not to be left alone; but he, a man of integrity to the bitter end, never did so.
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.
Eight foreign characters recall their exploits and fears in Malaga, a paradise city that starts a revolution on July 18th 1936, as the military coup is stopped by popular rebellion, until February 9th 1937, when Mussolini troops take Malaga and put it under the rule of Franco.
In july 1936, the civil war began in Spain, and it would last three years. Since then, it has constantly been a subject for fascination and controversy.
While cleaning the apartment of Lucía, her deceased grandmother, Anna finds a notebook where she discovers the story of a secretly kept love, lived during the turbulent years of the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War.
Nazi propaganda film about the Condor Legion, a unit of German "volunteers" who fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of eventual dictator Francisco Franco against the elected government of Spain.
Caudillo is a documentary film by Spanish film director Basilio Martín Patino. It follows the military and political career of Francisco Franco and the most important moments of the Spanish Civil War.
Popular movie trailers from 1939
These some of the most viewed trailers for movies released in 1939:
Blondie and Dagwood are in charge of operations at a mountain motel. The elderly owners of the establishment are in danger of losing their life savings.
Trixie is a female pilot looking to win a big race to advance her career. During one race, however, her plane becomes damaged, and she needs help to repair it.
"Tailspin Tommy" Tompkins and "Skeeter" Milligan are training young U. S. Army fliers for the newly-formed 'Sky Patrol,'a branch of the Army Reserves which operates along the borders and coast-lines, on the lookout for smugglers.
The second of a series of four features Monogram made based on the comic strip by Hal Forrest (Universal also used the strip characters in two serials), finds a movie company shooting a war picture at Three Points airport, with Tailspin Tommy Tompkins as a stunt pilot in the film.
The MGM crime reporter introduces Norman Kennedy, District Attorney of a large city, he who talks about the general want for money, and the extraordinary lengths some will go to to get it.
Comments
Have you watched L'Exode d'un peuple yet? What did you think about it?
