Film workshops in Spain: Oppositional practices, alternative film cultures and the transition to democracy

This article focuses on the development of film workshops in Spain. In particular, it examines their importance in Spanish film culture during the last years of Franco's dictatorship and follows them up until the early years of the democratic regime. Thus, the essay undertakes three tasks: first, to map out the development of film workshops in Spain during the 1970s, trying to trace their fragmentary and highly-dispersed history; second, to examine the film practices of La Central del Curt and the Cooperativa de Cinema Alternatiu as main examples of these organizations and, third, to contextualize these proposals in the uneven field of transitional cultural practices, considering them a challenge to theoretical and methodological questions in the study of minor cinemas.

minor cinemas; experimental film; spanish film culture; film cooperatives; film workshops; cooperativa de cinema alternatiu; spanish transition; marginal cinema

Film workshops in Spain: Oppositional practices, alternative film cultures and the transition to democracy Articles