Nova Corona

Poema

From the Life to the Mind of the Writer in the Literary Biopic: Andrucha Waddington’s Lope and Ray Loriga’s Teresa

Lope (Andrucha Waddington 2010) and Teresa (Ray Loriga 2007) have much in common. Both biopics center on a revered literary figure of the Spanish Golden Age. However, in spite of their many commonalities, these films embody two distinct tendencies in the contemporary literary biopic genre: one more “typical,” represented by Lope, that focuses heavily on plot development and another, represented by Teresa, that aspires to visually transpose to the screen aspects that relate to the main character’s interiority. Although Teresa has features of the “typical” contemporary literary biopic, it innovates the genre significantly by moving its focus from the life to the mind of the writer. Loriga uses the language of cinematography to depict the imagery and affective qualities of the mysticism of Teresa de Ávila—the force behind her writings—, creating a film that emphasizes image and emotions over plot. Teresa thus brings a different sensitivity to the literary biopic, which deviates from more formulaic films. Centering on the author’s mind can indeed be a new path for filmmakers to innovate the biopic genre, particularly in its literary strand. Finally, these two biopics illustrate the need to expand the scholarly conversation about the contemporary literary biopic genre, as they both engage with and deviate from the formula established by Anglo-Saxon biopics.

Militancia femenina contra la dictadura de Pinochet: Legitimación memorística de La mujer metralleta

This essay analyzes the representation of female activism in La mujer metralleta, a documentary by Chilean Francisco López Balló that reconstructs the biography of Marcela Rodríguez Valdivieso, a guerrilla who has succumbed to the oblivion in Chile. It is necessary to highlight her anti-dictatorial fight in order to recover her name and that of so many other militants. My study aims to eliminate the prevailing silence around the exiles who also contributed to the redemocratization processes in Chile and participated in the resistance against Pinochet. Despite their constant political activism, women have been excluded from official historiography. This essay claims a place in the world to one of the many activists who experienced the process of Chilean exile and whose biography contributes to a better understanding of female activism. This documentary offers a new approach to the past is constructed that questions the relations between the State and the revolutionary position of women, despite the fact that women have historically played a marginal role in war conflicts. My paper points out the relevance of this guerrilla, how this documentary contributes to reconstructing history and how exile affects the transmission of memories.

Objetivos transnacionales: El cine español del nuevo milenio

Although transnationality as a phenomenon is as old as film, the contemporary reflection on this topic and the plurality of approaches that converge on it have opened new lines of analysis to evaluate the impact that this reality exerts on the film industry. My intention in this study is to propose a typology that reflects the impact of transnationality in the specific case of Spanish film to explore the dynamics that control our cinematic production in the third millennium. I propose six segments to structure my approach to the Spanish film industry: 1. Production modes; 2. Transnational subjects; 3. Aesthetic registers; 4. Themes; 5. Ethics and ideology; 6. Critical and moviegoer reception. Within this framework, I will explore the dialectics between the national essence of Spanish film and its transnationality, the impact of different financial models, the multidirectional movements of our actors and directors, esthetic influences, the ethics of the industry and the response of critics and viewers to a film industry that swings between preserving and erasing its identity markers.

Enrique E. Cortez. Biografía y polémica: El Inca Garcilaso y el archivo colonial andino en el siglo XIX.

Book review of Biografía y polémica: El Inca Garcilaso y el archivo colonial andino en el siglo XIX by Enrique E. Cortez.

Introduction

This special issue of Periphērica, Image and Storytelling: New Approaches to Hispanic Cinema and Literature, features leading research by scholars of Hispanic cultures at the crossroads of literature, film, mind, and society. The collection showcases cutting-edge fields and themes including cognitive studies, affect studies, embodiment, and empathy, as well as new perspectives on adaptation, film typology, film teaching, gender, and genre. The research presented in this special issue underscores the excitement produced by crossing disciplinary boundaries in the study of verbal and visual narratives, moving beyond prevalent transnational approaches that do not sufficiently address key factors in the creation and reception of film narratives such as historical-sociological contexts, affective dynamics, psychological responses, and gender variables. The contributors include scholars whose professional and social relationships to the history, practices, and evolution of the moving image and new media vary widely, broaching a diversity of theories and methodologies and presenting readers with a comprehensive and innovative perspective on film art and the relationship between filmmakers, films, spectators, and contexts.

The Directors Round Table at Cine-Lit with Film Directors Juan Carlos Valdivia, Celina Murga, Mariana Chenillo, Carlos Marqués-Marcet, Javier Corcuera and Gabriela Martínez Escobar

Since its inception in 1991, the Cine-Lit film conference, sponsored by multiple Oregon universities, in conjunction with the Portland International Film Festival, has climaxed with the Directors Round Table of invitees, all auteurs, from Spain and Latin America after several days of screenings of films from these geographical areas and the presentation of academic papers. At Cine-Lit 8 (2015), we were fortunate to attend one of the best Directors Round Tables ever. Below the reader will find a translation of that conversation with six directors about problems of globalization, film financing in their countries and the local as well as the international distribution of their films.

Es un río que ha perdido su luz

Poema

Mirant al cel/Eyes on the Sky: The (Im)possible Expiation of the Spectral Other

This article analyzes the contribution of the new Catalan documentary in the current process of reclaiming the collective historical memory repressed by Francoism and by the Silence Deal established during the political transition to democracy after Franco’s death. This analysis will consider some films that use the family metaphor as a national allegory to represent the plight of the Catalan nation. The main thesis of this study is to underline the need for reparation regarding the crimes committed by Francoism during and after the Spanish Civil War and the fact that such a reparation has not taken place neither in fiction nor in historical terms. This essay relies on the post-Derridian concept of “hauntology” as a theoretical framework to study the spectral textual encounters that mark the symptoms of an uninterrupted mourning process that appeals to the historical memory in search of dignity and closure. Methodologically, this study offers a close textual reading of Jesús Garay’s film Mirant al cel (Eyes on the Sky, 2008) as a perfect case study where the spectral conflict between victims and victimizers is acted out in the context of Barcelona and Catalonia and the series of urban mass bombings carried out by the Italian Royal Legion under the direct supervision of Il Duce, Mussolini. Garay’s film special relevance lies in the fact of its being one of the few documentaries that revisits those three dramatic days in March 1938 that became a tragic rehearsal of the massive urban aerial raids of the Second World War.