Tristana Media | Lorca on Film

March 2009

Ciné lumière, London

Immortalized in death by The Clash, Pablo Neruda, Salvador Dalí and Leonard Cohen, Federico García Lorca's spectre haunts both contemporary Spain and the landscape beyond.

Both martyr and muse, Lorca has now moved beyond his own poetry and plays to function paradoxically as both the ultimate countercultural gay icon and the establishment face of the newly tolerant post-dictatorship Spain.

This short film season offers both a consideration of the varied ways in which his plays have been envisaged for the screen - from Carlos Saura's Bodas de sangre/Blood Wedding (1981) to Joaquín Oristrell's Los abajo firmantes/With George Bush on My Mind (2003) - and looks into the fascination that his life and death have held for contemporary filmmakers including Juan Antonio Bardem and Paul Morrison.

Ever wondered why Lorca exerts such a powerful hold on the cultural imagination? Well, 'Lorca on Film' offers a few answers in a cinematic journey that moves from Granada to Paris, from surrealism to the Hollywood biopic, in presenting a unique perspective into the life, death and work of one of Spain's most celebrated writers.

Curator: Maria Delgado
Professor of Theatre and Screen Arts at Queen Mary, University of London and programme advisor to the London Film Festival. Her film reviews have appeared in Sight and Sound and on BBC Radio’s Night Waves, Front Row and the Film Programme.

Producer: Joana Granero
Director of the London Spanish Film Festival

The season comes from research conducted for Maria Delgado’s book on Federico García Lorca published by Routledge in 2008, made possible by an award from the AHRC.

Acknowledgements:

Juan Mazarredo Pamplo, Nickolas Grace, Hannah Bentley, Joel Fram, Sandra Hebron and the Festivals team at the British Film Institute, Henry Little, Martin Lowe, Aria Films, Irene Delgado-Byrne, Maggie Gale, Manuel de Juan, Carlos Saura, Nigel Relph, Schools of English and Drama and Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary, University of London

With the Support of:

Special thanks to:

			LORCA ON FILM