¡Franco ha muerto!

Especially today, when the monsters of the past seem to be returning, it is important to celebrate this date – but also to take a look at the continuities, the failed reappraisal and the wasted opportunities. The film evening aims to contribute to this.

Programme:

5:30 p.m. | Documentary film
Assassinations of Franco – Resistance against a Dictator
Germany 2016, directors: Daniel Guthmann & Joachim Palutzki, 45 min
Contrary to his own propaganda, Franco feared for his life in an almost pathological way. And rightly so: over 20 failed assassination attempts became known after his death. The filmmakers want to know who was behind the assassination plans, what drove the assassins, and how close they came to their goal. Former Franco assassins Octavio Alberola and Stuart Christie provide information. By reconstructing the failed assassination attempts against Franco, the film also depicts a repressive apparatus that reflects a dictator's fear of his own people.

6:15 p.m. | Documentary film
Franco on Trial: The Spanish Nuremberg? (Original version with subtitles) Germany/Spain 2018, directed by Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios, 98 min
It is one of the greatest crimes in recent European history: the genocide in Spain committed during the coup in 1936, the subsequent war and the fascist dictatorship that followed. After a failed attempt to bring the crimes to light in a Spanish court, the Argentine judiciary has been trying since 2010 to prosecute alleged perpetrators of the Franco dictatorship. Is this the end of decades of impunity? In the presence of the directing team Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios


8:30 p.m. | Documentary film
El Entusiasmo (original version with subtitles) ES 2018, director: Luis E. Herrero, 80 min
Franco's death paved the way in Spain for a rebellious youth that had a lot of catching up to do. Counterculture, labour struggles, feminism, sexual liberation... The historic anarcho-syndicalist union CNT seemed to be a fitting framework for this and experienced a renaissance. It organised meetings with hundreds of thousands of participants, libertarian days, strikes and resistance. For a brief historical moment, everything seemed possible... In the presence of contemporary witness Felipe Orobón.

10 p.m. | Feature film
Madres Paralelas – Parallel Mothers (original version with subtitles) ES 2020, director: Pedro Almodóvar, 123 min, starring: Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Rossy de Palma, Israel Elejalde and many more.
Two women, two pregnancies, two lives. Janis and Ana are both expecting their first child and meet by chance in the hospital shortly before giving birth. The few words they exchange during these hours create a very close bond between the two, which develops and complicates itself by chance and changes their lives in a decisive way. Pedro Almodóvar's modern melodrama tells the story of the aftermath of the Franco era in a sophisticated and unexpected way. It combines the story of two dissimilar mothers with Spain's collective civil war trauma to create a serious family drama about shocking discoveries and unresolved truths.

• Date: 20 November 25
  
• Location: Lichtblick Cinema, Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin
  
• Admission: 5:30 p.m. screening: €7, all other screenings €9
  

Organised by Lichtblick Cinema and Sabcat Media.
Curated by Hansi Oostinga and Elisa Rosi.

Supported by the Spanish Embassy, FAU Berlin, KFSR e.V., Berliner VVN-BdA, Café Libertad Kollektiv and Mitte Meer – Mediterrane Spezialitäten. Media partner: Tageszeitung nd. Illustration: Montxo Algora, for the cover of the Spanish underground magazine ‘Star,’ No. 30, 1977. Lichtblick Cinema, Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg.