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PL 085DVD
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Franco on Trial is a documentary film by Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios. After the success of Franco's Settlers (PL 084DVD), their first exploration of Franco's dictatorship, now they investigate one of the darkest chapters of European history: the crimes committed in Spain during the 1936 coup, the subsequent civil war (1936-1939), and during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975), which could only be established with the cooperation of Germany, Italy, and Portugal. After a Spanish judge's attempt to prosecute Franco and his generals for crimes against humanity failed in 2010, Franco's victims filed a case in Buenos Aires, known as "Querella Argentina". An Argentinian investigating judge, María Servini, has now issued 24 international arrest warrants for high-ranking representatives of the Franco dictatorship. The filmmakers accompany her as she tries to initiate court proceedings against the accused, proving that a reappraisal of Spain's darkest chapter is long overdue. Franco on Trial investigates specific cases presented in the "Argentinian Complaint". By interweaving never-before-seen archival material with current footage and contextualizing each case historically and juridically, the film reveals new evidence. In one of the key scenes, when one of the suspected perpetrators is confronted directly with the accusations by the plaintiff, the investigating judge and the plaintiff's lawyers, the film creates a sense of the impending lawsuit's significance. For more than twenty years Palacios and Post have been investigating Spanish "historical memory". Franco on Trial is the result of over ten years' work. During that time the directors managed to gain access to people from both sides of the conflict, including the daughter of a general in the 1936 coup, who still cherishes a silver-framed portrait of (and personal present from) the German Nazi leader Hermann Goering. Franco on Trial reveals an almost forgotten part of 20th century European history and considers whether the "Argentinian Complaint" will become a Spanish Nuremberg.
DVD content: Germany, Spain 2018, DVD 9, NTSC, no regions. Film running time: 102 minutes; Total running time: 121 minutes. Includes 16-page booklet in German, English, and Spanish. Subtitles: English, German, Spanish.
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PL 084DVD
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Franco's Settlers: The History Of A Village Without A History: There's a village among the high plains of La Mancha in Spain whose name pays tribute to its creator. Llanos del Caudillo (Plains of the Caudillo) was one of 300 settlement villages built for poor farmers during the dictatorship of General Franco. The documentary film Franco's Settlers is a portrait of this village, which was founded in 1955. The film explores how the legacy of the dictatorship is handled, a legacy that still divides Spanish society. Highly significant documents were unearthed during the shooting of the film. The findings prompt the mayor to declare: "These documents contain the history of a village without a history." What begins as an investigation into an unknown chapter in Spanish history evolves into a reflection on contemporary Spanish society. A society in which a judge trying to prosecute those who committed crimes during the dictatorship himself becomes the subject of judicial prosecution, while at the same time those who still valorize the dictatorship go unpunished. The film explores the past to find the key to the present and the question why many people still honor the dictator. Meanwhile, some Spaniards are demanding justice for crimes against humanity committed during the military coup (1936), civil war (1936-1939) and the 40-year dictatorship (1939-1975). Approximately 114,000 victims of Francoist violence are still missing, buried in mass graves. The amnesty law of 1977 impedes any sort of penal action. In 2010, victims seeking justice filed a complaint in Argentina. Unlike many films that deal with Spanish historical memory by siding with the victim's perspective, Franco's Settlers gives voice to both sides, including those who still defend and admire the dictator Franco. So the film captures what it meant to live under a dictatorship. By using the village as an example and villagers' stories of harassment, abuse and economic betrayal, the corruption of the Francoist system is revealed. The film consciously locates itself in the tradition of poetic documentary filmmaking, recalling both in its aesthetic and its cinematic narrative the historical film debates of Claude Lanzmann (Shoah) and Eberhard Fechner (Der Prozess).
DVD content: Germany, Spain 2013/2018, DVD 9, NTSC, no regions. Film running time: 118 minutes; Total running time: 211 minutes, bonus materials. Includes 16-page booklet in German, English, and Spanish. Subtitles: English, German, French, Romanian, Spanish. Includes teaching materials in German and Spanish.
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Book
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PL 083BK
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A collection of texts by Patricia Campelo, Carlos Castresana, Cristóbal Gómez Benito, Christoph Haas, Christoph Hübner, Paco Nadal, Rafael Poch-de-Feliu, Johanna Pumb, Georg Seeßlen, Kerstin Stutterheim, and Juan Zapater. For some time, neoliberalism has defined the content and aesthetic of documentary films. The classic open, "searching" documentary film is now very rare. It has been superseded by formatted, closed documentaries that follow the rules of advertising, propaganda or feature films, seeking to arouse emotions and encourage identification with the heroes of the story. For the past twenty years, festivals, film sponsors, and TV companies have been demanding and promoting feel-good films in conformity to the market. There's little desire for films that offer grey shades, skepticism, complexity, distance from the subject, films that are thought-provoking and challenging. Through the example of Franco's Settlers (PL 084DVD), this book explores the difficulties encountered by filmmakers who resist this neoliberal standard format. It also considers the subject of the film, how Spain has not yet undergone a process of coming to terms with the civil war, Franco's dictatorship and their legacies. 320 pages; softcover; 33 colored photographs.
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PL 018-19DVD
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2010 release. From the award-winning filmmakers behind Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (PL 004DVD, 2006), Dietmar Post (USA/Germany) and Lucía Palacios (Spain), come two direct cinema documentaries, Klangbad: Avant-Garde in the Meadows (85 minutes, 2009) and Faust: Live at Klangbad Festival (70 minutes, 2010). The first takes as its subject the pop avant-garde music festival Klangbad, curated by Hans-Joachim Irmler (founding member of the seminal krautrock band Faust). Since 2004, the picturesque German village of Scheer has hosted an innovative musical journey crossing various genres. In today's profit-oriented event scene, it is hard to find anything comparable. The festival is small but growing constantly. Despite this fact, it abandons commercial sponsoring, unlike normal open-air festivals. Post and Palacios paint a portrait of this fine festival in the style of such direct cinema pioneers as Murray Lerner (Festival!, 1967), Albert and David Maysles (Gimme Shelter, 1970), and D. A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop, 1968). Klangbad: Avant-Garde in the Meadows follows that tradition of carefully chronicling an event, with appearances by Minit, Jutta Koether, Steven W. Lobdell, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Cpt. Howdy, Circle, Faust, The One Ensemble of Daniel Padden, and Nista Nije Nista. Faust: Live at Klangbad Festival captures a rare live performance by Faust (Steven Wray Lobdell, guitar; Michael Stoll, bass and flute; Lars Paukstat, percussion and vocals; Hans-Joachim Irmler, organ; Ralf Meinz, drums and FX; and Arnulf Meifert, percussion). This DVD also contains 25 minutes of bonus material, including trailers for the films Klangbad: Avant-Garde in the Meadows, Faust: Live at Klangbad Festival, Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback, FM Einheit + Irmler: Live at Berghain, Doc Schoko: Oktopus im Pentagramm, A Summer Evening with Floating di Morel, and Martin Rev: Electronic Pioneer, as well as the art film "Pesadilla" by Baseline. Includes eight-page color booklet with detailed liner notes, track listings, photographs, reprint of original Klangbad poster, and a list of every band to play at the festival from 2004-2009. Drawings by German painter Daniel Richter. Concept, artwork, compilation, and production by Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios. DVD is all-region; NTSC format.
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