Spanish Documentary Movies

Finally, 33 years later, the whole truth behind the attempted coup d'état that shook Spain on the afternoon of February 23, 1981, is revealed by those who lived through those dreadful hours; a deep look behind the heavy curtain which hides the real mastermind, waiting to be unmasked.

Before leaving adolescence behind, a group of students split into fictional characters to film their transition into adulthood. Between cameras, confidences, and a shared journey to the mountains, the film captures the tremor of an ending and the glimpse of another beginning.

Spanish Civil War, May, 1938. Four villages in Castellón, Benassal, Albocàsser, Ares del Maestrat and Vilar de Canes, were bombed from the sky and ravaged. 38 people died. Inhabitants never knew for sure who piloted the planes responsible for such atrocity, although the rebel propaganda attributed the act to the republican side. Now, 80 years later, the truth is finally exposed.

Santa Liberdade tells the kidnapping of the Portuguese transatlantic ship "Santa Maria" at the beginning of the 60's.This was a political act aiming to call the world's attention on the dictatorships of Salazar and Franco, since also several Galician Franco's opponents took part in it.

Torremolinos, province of Málaga, Spain, autumn 1981. In the basement of a pub frequented by foreigners, five young self-taught people found a musical group that in less than a year conquers the charts: Danza Invisible, one of the best bands in the history of Spanish pop music, was born.

Meet Daniel Burmeister, the most prolific filmmaker you've never heard of. Armed with a camera, a lamp for night shoots, and enough charm to persuade entire towns to join in on his dreams, this tireless, jolly DIY veteran rolls in his beat up old car from one backwater Argentine town to another, where, in exchange for room and board, he turns out a feature film in 30 days. Adapting one of his ready-made scripts to each town, he temporarily transforms these sleepy villages into bustling back lots and the bored populace into avid performers. Coupling high energy with irresistible salesmanship, Burmeister keeps in constant motion. It took the combined efforts of three filmmakers to keep up with him, and their camera is there to capture his every move, recording his reflections on life, his recollections of his past, and his remarkable ability to solve a host of on-set mishaps.

Two geniuses destined to define an era collided on the same stage. This documentary explores the origins of the rivalry between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi-the moment their confrontation transformed Spanish football and forever redefined greatness in the modern game.

"The wound and the knife" is several things, or at least three: a documentary, a fiction and an essay. A documentary about the creative process of the last 5 years of the artist Emilio García Wehbi, a series of fictional scenes that dialogue with his work and a kind of essay on the body. In this sense, the staging is situated in the fragment, not only in the fragments of Wehbi's works, but also in the fragments of the bodies that make up those works. Thus, a little adrift and with a puzzle structure, in "The wound and the knife" I manifest a constant will to jump into the void, in this way the film denies itself as a closed work, but rather, what what it tries to be is a draft, the single notes that survived my own process.

No overview available

"El Sueño de Todos” is about the chilean national football team and what they lived during their qualification process for the 2014 Brazil World Cup.

No overview available

No overview available

This documentary is about sexism and masculinity. It’s also a journey through reflections on male condition, an attempt to strip away beliefs, myths and prejudices about masculinity. Why is there violence against women? We try to answer that by the hand of a former pimp trapped by his past and an artist, son of a prostitute, who transforms his pain into provocative performances. In parallel, the class of a high school teacher and a team of publicists become debate scenarios on the same theme, while interspersed reflections of several influential men who address the issue of masculinity from multiple points of view. A rich and complex approach that invites us to reflect on our own gender related education and socialization.

No overview available

No overview available

Argentina continues Saura’s lyrical exploration of the essence, talent and patrimony of popular dance and song in both fiction and documentary

In this joyous documentary about the passion of soccer, the iconic Uruguayan musician Jaime Roos and his son reunite to embark on a journey to the South African World Cup with the Uruguayan national soccer team.

What is the state of cinema and what being a filmmaker means? What are the measures taken to protect authors' copyright? What is their legal status in different countries? (Sequel to “Filmmakers vs. Tycoons.”)

Through the second half of the 1960's the Beat movement and the first National Rock were the flagship of the youth, leaders as never before of a society in transformation. The formation of the first bands, the venues for concerts, the difficulties to sing rock in Spanish and interact with other artists create new ways to communicate previously unavailable. This documentary presents the story of these first pioneers of the Argentinean rock music.

No overview available

Explores the sensuous rhythms and movements of the dance style known as the rumba, as demonstrated by the celebrated Havana rumbero Papá Montero. Blending vintage documentary footage with meticulously staged recreations, the dancer's tragic assassination at Carnival is connected with the passing of a cultural era in Cuban life.

Based on the only four surviving shots of the first Colombian silent film, MARÍA (1921), by directors Máximo Calvo (Colombia) and Alfredo del Diestro (Spain), IN SEARCH OF ‘MARIA’ combines historical research, interviews, and scenic reconstruction to rescue the memory of a lost film.

This documentary explores how Miguel Ángel Blanco's 1997 abduction turned fear into collective resistance and shaped Spain's fright Against ETA terrorism.

The Incredibles tells the story of three everyday heroes: Broken Wing, The Iron Lady and Radioactive Woman. Three people who endure the adversities of life and who struggle against the most terrible villains: death, lovelessness and loneliness.

A humorous visit to the turbulent world of the controversial Spanish boxer José Manuel Urtain.

They still carry his house keys with them, Joaquin Sabina's old friends. It does not matter that the Madrid-based singer, who is adored throughout the Spanish-speaking community, changed the locks to his house years ago. After the brain haemorrhage that hit him in 2001, Sabina suddenly could not bear the dozens of friends anymore that invaded his house. This was a raw deal for them, as the interviews reveal that director Ramón Gieling had with them. As in Gieling's previous documentaries, he created a cinematographic form for the interviews, which he consistently applies. Friends and former lovers are introduced in a minutely reconstructed copy of the living room they were expelled from. In the real living room, they used to lead a loose life without thinking about the health risks.

No overview available

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.

Ernestina is a small town of 150 people whose peculiar inhabitants are deeply concerned by the acts of vandalism perpetrated by the people who go bathe in the river. They decide to hire private security. What is really going on in Ernestina? A suspenseful, humorous and endearing documentary about the dynamics of these small-town people.

Commissioned by the Maeght Gallery with the exhibition of Joan Miró, organized by the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs at the Grand Palais, which opened on May 17, 1974 in Paris. This film was shot in six days in Montroig del Camp (at the Miró) and Tarragona during the implementation process, by Josep Royo, a tapestry by Joan Miró. Five people worked for eight months in the realization of this tapestry, using wool 1200kg and 600kg for the warp. The total weight of 3500kg and a half was six meters wide by 11 meters long. They need a purpose built weaving loom. The day of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, the tapestry was placed in the lobby of one of the towers when they were demolished.

The documentary captures the fall or rebuilding what had been a symbol of the Franco regime, but the cessation of work due to the economic crisis turns into a viewer of the financial and economic paralysis of the country during these years.

Six elderly retired women, two from Buenos Aires, Argentina; two from Montevideo, Uruguay; and two from Madrid, Spain, have something in common, despite their different interests and lives: they go to the movies almost every day.

In 1994, a triple homicide at the Miramar home of a vivacious South Florida bar owner shocked the entire community. Pablo Ibar, son of famed Spanish jai alai player Candido Ibar, is convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. After 16 years on death row, the Florida Supreme Court suspends Pablo’s execution and orders a new trial: Pablo’s last chance. In this docuseries, a swirl of characters, including judges, attorneys, victims’ family members, Pablo’s family, other suspects, detectives, jurors, create an epic tapestry of what it means to be on trial in America.

The 70th anniversary of the “Fotogramas” magazine comes in the shape of a sentimental voyage through the history of Spanish cinema thanks to a mosaic of voices represented by people who make films, those who write them and those who consume them. The documentary pays tribute to the readers of “Fotogramas” helped by the leading figures of Spanish cinema, who will read to the camera the most representative letters received at its offices in the history of the magazine.

Lázaro Escarze, an 87 years old revolutionary Cuban man, lives in a small village and will have his phone installed for the first time in his life. To whom will he call?

The history of how the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art of Cuenca was created. In the mid-1950s, the Spanish collector and painter Fernando Zóbel de Ayala (1924-84) becomes fascinated by the young generation of Spanish abstract artists, so he begins to collect their works to show them to the public in Toledo. Until Gustavo Torner, a young forest engineer interested in art, proposes him to visit his city, Cuenca.

No overview available

No overview available

No overview available

An intimate portrait of the pioneering artistic collective Grupo de Cali, whose work is now considered a fundamental part of Colombia’s film history.