A true story: some years ago, I paid one euro for a handbag in an informal auction in Valencia. When I came home, I found inside the handbag lots of papers. Amongst them, two letters dated 1946, unsent. Their author announced his imminent suicide, due to the negative effects of war, prison and the lost of his family. El ultimo abrazo (The last embrace) is a short documentary film about our research, from the moment we found the letters until we find out who had written these letters, what had driven him to take his own life and why were both letters together and unsent.
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.
The young farmer Aalami leaves his family to find work elsewhere. He gets to know the country and its people, customs and traditions at Küste in North Africa: Market life in Tetuan, the art of craftsmanship, the life of the Moors, dances and festivities in honour of the caliph, white mosques, the call of the muezzin of the minaret and the music of the shepherd flutes.
The amazing story of Cifesa, a mythical film production company founded in Valencia by the Casanova family that managed to dominate the box office during the turbulent times of the Second Spanish Republic, the carnage of the Civil War and the hardships of the long post-war period and Franco's dictatorship — and survive until the sixties, when Spain was timidly beginning to change.
In 1939, just finished the Spanish Civil War, Spanish republican photographer Francesc Boix escapes from Spain; but is captured by the Nazis in 1940 and imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp, in Austria, a year later.
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.
Documentary produced by Falange and edited in Berlin, in response to the international success of the Republican production "Spain 1936" (Le Chanois, 1937).
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.
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.
Franco on Trial is the new film by Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios. After the success of Franco's Settlers, their first encounter with Franco's dictatorship, they are now setting their sights on one of the darkest chapters of European history: the presumed organized extermination that took place during the coup, the war, and the subsequent dictatorship led by Franco, as well as Argentina's current effort, by invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction, to prosecute Francoists accused of committing crimes against humanity.
Popular movie trailers from 2014
These some of the most viewed trailers for movies released in 2014:
When a couple discovers a strange phenomenon in their backyard that duplicates organic life, their relationship takes unexpected turns after one of them makes a copy of themselves.
When Lou Bloom, desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
It was a concert fit for a king. Filmed live from his final show in Dallas, Texas, George Strait performs some of his most-loved hits and shares the stage with many famous friends.
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
After surviving the Quarter Quell, Katniss finds herself in the hidden stronghold of District 13, where the rebellion against the Capitol is gaining momentum.
A thriller set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.
William stands at the window telling Abigail his story of walking down 'the witches' path. The unseen spectral Abigail taunts William suggesting that he walked down the path hoping to see her.
Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.
Comments
Have you watched El último abrazo yet? What did you think about it?
