This past weekend Granada hosted the Goya Awards for the first time.
During the 39th edition of the gala we were able to hear the Morente
brothers sing the praised «Anda jaleo» by Lorca from the Alhambra, an
idyllic place for a song with deep popular roots in one of the cradles
of flamenco. The Spanish film awards were, as always, covered in a halo
of political progressivism, which when you scratch the surface slightly
turns out to be a watered-down and elitist show. ---- Awards in which
public education was discussed, the genocide of the Palestinian people,
the fight for decent housing; and which later had as its main sponsor
«Airbnb», one of the main culprits of the touristification, among many
others, of the historic Albayzín neighborhood, located in front of the
Alhambra. And there is little red on that red carpet, beyond being a
loudspeaker for social causes of the want and can't. This year the main
favorites, and which ended up sharing the award for Best Film for the
first time in the history of these awards, were "El 47" and "La
Infiltrada." Films with a very different tone and which reflect the
intention of Spanish cinema: decaffeinated coffee for everyone.
The film "El 47" is a Catalan production by director Marcel Barrena, a
historical drama starring actor Eduard Fernández and actress Clara
Segura. The chosen theme brought more than one person closer to their
roots, since as Clara Segura stated when receiving the Goya for Best
Supporting Actress: "We were all foreigners at some point. The land does
not belong to us and only accompanies us for a while while we live."
Beyond the fantastic choice of the subject, the migration from
Extremadura and Andalusia to Torre Baró, the film shows that it is
evident that there are no acts of peaceful dissent, any confrontation
with a structural authority implies a good dose of conflict, physically
and psychologically confronting those who make us vulnerable and exploit
us. But above all, there are no individual acts of dissent, social
struggles do not have messianic "chosen ones", they may have visible
faces, people who publicly work hard, but behind each of them is the
social force of the common.
The story told by "El 47" reflects both issues by narrating events where
the protagonist was the neighborhood movement of the Torre Baró
neighborhood in the city of Barcelona in 1978. But that story does not
begin that year and it is not only the story of Manolo Vital, a bus
driver from Extremadura who emigrated to Catalonia twenty years ago. It
is the story of a working-class neighbourhood in Barcelona built by its
inhabitants, but let's not romanticise it either, it was built on the
gaps of misery and Francoist repression. When urban suburbs joined hands
every night to build the house from the roof up on steep slopes of earth.
The film is part of the Spanish social cinema that wants to counteract
the reactionary wave that we are currently experiencing, although as a
film from the film industry, it carries out a pertinent manoeuvre of
erasure of issues that must be made visible. And the figure of Manolo
Vital did not act on his own; he was a militant of the PSUC and CC.OO.
in the 70s. Regardless of the opinion that we may have as anarchists,
what is true is that social struggles are tackled by organised
militants. In fact, the story ignores that the day before hijacking the
bus, he met with other militants to study the action. It was not an
individual gesture, but part of a collective struggle. The film also
makes a nod to neo-reformism in a completely unnecessary and unrealistic
way, and it places a young Pasqual Maragall on that bus in 1978,
introducing an element more to the taste of the story, far removed from
a more reliable reality of what a social struggle is.
This neighborhood struggle to bring the bus to their neighborhood, to
connect their neighbors with the reality of Barcelona, also has its
counterpart from the revolutionary perspective. And it is that many of
those people, in the 70s, already saw the horizon of life promised by
the emerging neoliberalism closer than a social revolution as was
dreamed of a few decades earlier. In the middle, a ruthless and
genocidal dictatorship had stolen that horizon, exterminating any hint
of organization that would emancipate the exploited class.
The stories of survival and building a community are emotional, we
cannot deny it. The incredible performance of Zoe Bonafonte, Vital's
daughter in the film, singing "Gallo rojo, gallo negro" by Chicho
Sánchez Ferlosio brought tears to the eyes of the audience. Scenes like
this manage to provoke absolute emotion in those of us who have ideas of
social justice and political organization. They connect us with a past
of class struggles against the dictatorship and against its favourite
daughter, bourgeois democracy. It is impossible not to be moved at
various moments of the film by the resistance of the neighbours of Torre
Baró.
Sharing the award for Best Film is «La Infiltrada», a film directed by
Arantxa Echevarría and Amélia Mora, the latter already an expert in
pseudo police dramas that fight against terrorism, such as the series
«La Unidad». The story tells the true story of Aránzazu Berradre, a
nickname used by the national police Elena Tejada, infiltrated in ETA
for eight years. She was recruited by Commissioner Fernando Sainz
Merino, alias El Inhumano, when she had just graduated as a police
officer from the Academy of Ávila, and sent as an undercover agent at
just 20 years of age, ending up living in a flat with Basque ETA
militants for two years. During her infiltration she maintained a
parallel life, integrating herself, following her initial contact, in
the Movement of Conscientious Objection in Logroño, and later in the
social bases of the Basque left. This story will surely be very familiar
to us after having seen the documentary report «Infiltrats», broadcast
on TV3 and produced by La Directa. In one hour it tells us about the
cases of police infiltration in social movements in this last decade.
Cases of legal torture sponsored by the state and legitimised by a large
part of society.
«La Infiltrada», with its production, publicity and shared award, is
normalising in society that police infiltrations are valid and
legitimate. It portrays any enemy of the political regime as a faceless
monster who can be tortured, violated and eliminated under any premise,
even in a bourgeois democracy with supposed norms of legal rights. The
directors are entering the dark tunnel of the extreme right's discourse
to air it to the four winds, the sewers of the Spanish state are
legitimised, and any dissent is buried with the official discourse. Even
one of their producers, at the Goya Awards gala, claimed historical
memory for the victims of ETA, forgetting at the same time the memory of
hundreds of people murdered by the Spanish state since the transition.
Little more can be expected than that in a couple of decades they
produce a film dedicated to the policemen infiltrated in our times in
political movements; the normalisation of this state violence deserves a
response, because infiltration is also torture.
Spanish cinema once again shows lukewarmness with progressive overtones.
Spanish cinema, a want and can't.
Angel Malatesta, a Liza activist and Andrés Cabrera, an Impulso activist
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/02/11/el-cine-espanol-y-el-progresismo-una-de-cal-y-otra-de-arena/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
During the 39th edition of the gala we were able to hear the Morente
brothers sing the praised «Anda jaleo» by Lorca from the Alhambra, an
idyllic place for a song with deep popular roots in one of the cradles
of flamenco. The Spanish film awards were, as always, covered in a halo
of political progressivism, which when you scratch the surface slightly
turns out to be a watered-down and elitist show. ---- Awards in which
public education was discussed, the genocide of the Palestinian people,
the fight for decent housing; and which later had as its main sponsor
«Airbnb», one of the main culprits of the touristification, among many
others, of the historic Albayzín neighborhood, located in front of the
Alhambra. And there is little red on that red carpet, beyond being a
loudspeaker for social causes of the want and can't. This year the main
favorites, and which ended up sharing the award for Best Film for the
first time in the history of these awards, were "El 47" and "La
Infiltrada." Films with a very different tone and which reflect the
intention of Spanish cinema: decaffeinated coffee for everyone.
The film "El 47" is a Catalan production by director Marcel Barrena, a
historical drama starring actor Eduard Fernández and actress Clara
Segura. The chosen theme brought more than one person closer to their
roots, since as Clara Segura stated when receiving the Goya for Best
Supporting Actress: "We were all foreigners at some point. The land does
not belong to us and only accompanies us for a while while we live."
Beyond the fantastic choice of the subject, the migration from
Extremadura and Andalusia to Torre Baró, the film shows that it is
evident that there are no acts of peaceful dissent, any confrontation
with a structural authority implies a good dose of conflict, physically
and psychologically confronting those who make us vulnerable and exploit
us. But above all, there are no individual acts of dissent, social
struggles do not have messianic "chosen ones", they may have visible
faces, people who publicly work hard, but behind each of them is the
social force of the common.
The story told by "El 47" reflects both issues by narrating events where
the protagonist was the neighborhood movement of the Torre Baró
neighborhood in the city of Barcelona in 1978. But that story does not
begin that year and it is not only the story of Manolo Vital, a bus
driver from Extremadura who emigrated to Catalonia twenty years ago. It
is the story of a working-class neighbourhood in Barcelona built by its
inhabitants, but let's not romanticise it either, it was built on the
gaps of misery and Francoist repression. When urban suburbs joined hands
every night to build the house from the roof up on steep slopes of earth.
The film is part of the Spanish social cinema that wants to counteract
the reactionary wave that we are currently experiencing, although as a
film from the film industry, it carries out a pertinent manoeuvre of
erasure of issues that must be made visible. And the figure of Manolo
Vital did not act on his own; he was a militant of the PSUC and CC.OO.
in the 70s. Regardless of the opinion that we may have as anarchists,
what is true is that social struggles are tackled by organised
militants. In fact, the story ignores that the day before hijacking the
bus, he met with other militants to study the action. It was not an
individual gesture, but part of a collective struggle. The film also
makes a nod to neo-reformism in a completely unnecessary and unrealistic
way, and it places a young Pasqual Maragall on that bus in 1978,
introducing an element more to the taste of the story, far removed from
a more reliable reality of what a social struggle is.
This neighborhood struggle to bring the bus to their neighborhood, to
connect their neighbors with the reality of Barcelona, also has its
counterpart from the revolutionary perspective. And it is that many of
those people, in the 70s, already saw the horizon of life promised by
the emerging neoliberalism closer than a social revolution as was
dreamed of a few decades earlier. In the middle, a ruthless and
genocidal dictatorship had stolen that horizon, exterminating any hint
of organization that would emancipate the exploited class.
The stories of survival and building a community are emotional, we
cannot deny it. The incredible performance of Zoe Bonafonte, Vital's
daughter in the film, singing "Gallo rojo, gallo negro" by Chicho
Sánchez Ferlosio brought tears to the eyes of the audience. Scenes like
this manage to provoke absolute emotion in those of us who have ideas of
social justice and political organization. They connect us with a past
of class struggles against the dictatorship and against its favourite
daughter, bourgeois democracy. It is impossible not to be moved at
various moments of the film by the resistance of the neighbours of Torre
Baró.
Sharing the award for Best Film is «La Infiltrada», a film directed by
Arantxa Echevarría and Amélia Mora, the latter already an expert in
pseudo police dramas that fight against terrorism, such as the series
«La Unidad». The story tells the true story of Aránzazu Berradre, a
nickname used by the national police Elena Tejada, infiltrated in ETA
for eight years. She was recruited by Commissioner Fernando Sainz
Merino, alias El Inhumano, when she had just graduated as a police
officer from the Academy of Ávila, and sent as an undercover agent at
just 20 years of age, ending up living in a flat with Basque ETA
militants for two years. During her infiltration she maintained a
parallel life, integrating herself, following her initial contact, in
the Movement of Conscientious Objection in Logroño, and later in the
social bases of the Basque left. This story will surely be very familiar
to us after having seen the documentary report «Infiltrats», broadcast
on TV3 and produced by La Directa. In one hour it tells us about the
cases of police infiltration in social movements in this last decade.
Cases of legal torture sponsored by the state and legitimised by a large
part of society.
«La Infiltrada», with its production, publicity and shared award, is
normalising in society that police infiltrations are valid and
legitimate. It portrays any enemy of the political regime as a faceless
monster who can be tortured, violated and eliminated under any premise,
even in a bourgeois democracy with supposed norms of legal rights. The
directors are entering the dark tunnel of the extreme right's discourse
to air it to the four winds, the sewers of the Spanish state are
legitimised, and any dissent is buried with the official discourse. Even
one of their producers, at the Goya Awards gala, claimed historical
memory for the victims of ETA, forgetting at the same time the memory of
hundreds of people murdered by the Spanish state since the transition.
Little more can be expected than that in a couple of decades they
produce a film dedicated to the policemen infiltrated in our times in
political movements; the normalisation of this state violence deserves a
response, because infiltration is also torture.
Spanish cinema once again shows lukewarmness with progressive overtones.
Spanish cinema, a want and can't.
Angel Malatesta, a Liza activist and Andrés Cabrera, an Impulso activist
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/02/11/el-cine-espanol-y-el-progresismo-una-de-cal-y-otra-de-arena/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten