Documentary Film in Spain

Tutor:

Alice RŮŽIČKOVÁ

Synopsis:

Instructor: Aida Vallejo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), coordinator Alice Růžičková

Date and Time: Friday 6. 11. 2009, 10:00-13:00 + 14:00-17:00, Projection Room, FAMU

Assigments: 2 credit for 100% participation and written essay 1-2 pages, please email to alice.ruzickova@famu.cz

Prerequisites:

Study Objectives:

Outline and Syllabus:

This seminar provides an introduction and overview of documentary film in Spain. The representation of reality and thematic trends will be analysed and the use of visual language and narrative style will be explored. Spanish culture and contemporary history will be discussed through some of the most relevant documentary films.

To end up, the current situation of documentary film production, cinema studies and festival webs in Spain will be explored.

The seminar will be structured in four main thematic parts:

1) History of spanish documentary film

An introduction to the evolution of documentary film in the history of Spain, made both by spanish directors and from abroad. We will review the most important films and directors to give an idea of the different periods (both filmic and historical).

- Excerpts from: Las Hurdes (Luis Bunuel), Spanish Earth (Joris Ivens), No-Do (newsreel during dictature), Canciones para después de una guerra (censorship problem), and films made in the Transition and contemporary period (El desencanto; Ocana, retrato intermitente).

2) Thematic issues

Cultural representations and contemporary history will be discussed through some of the most relevant documentary films. We will focus on the recurrent issues: institutions, urban speculation and capitalism, the roma population, Latin America...

- Excerpts from: La leyenda del tiempo, La casa de mi abuela, La espalda del mundo, Balseros...

3) Aesthetic styles and narrative structures

Focusing mainly in contemporary documentary, we will analyse new ways of constructing documentary stories and stylistic techniques (compilation documentary, fake, observational, performative, documentary script, etc).

- Excerpts from: La leyenda del tiempo, Un instante en la vida ajena, En construcción, Casas Viejas, La espalda del mundo, El cielo gira, Balseros...

4) Industry, Studies, Distribution and Festivals

With an overview of the main documentary events in Spain we will see the distribution infrastructure in the country and its current trends.

PROFILE:

Aida Vallejo is a researcher on film studies and scriptwriter of Documentary Film.

M.A. on Theory and Practice of Creative Documentary Film (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain) she has successfully defended her dissertation Narrative Issues in Contemporary Documentary Film in March 2007 (Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain). Having participated in the research ?Gender Analysis of Contemporary Cinema for Children? for the governmental institution Women Institute of Catalonia (Spain) she currently works on her PhD thesis: ?Identity Issues in Eastern and Central European Documentary? in the Autonomous University of Madrid, supported by a grant from the Basque Government.

She has researched Eastern European Documentary in FAMU University of Prague (Czech Republic), EastSilver videolibrary (Prague), OSA Archives in Budapest (associated with the Central European University) and various festivals of Central and Eastern Europe: Zagrebdox (Croatia), Images of the XXI Century - Thessaloniki (Greece), Dialëktus (Budapest) and Jihlava.

She has presented the paper „Nuevos caminos de la falsedad documental. Český Sen: el engano como estrategia de aproximación a la realidad“ („New Paths of Documentary Falsehood: Český Sen: Deceit as a Strategy to Approach Reality“) in the 5th International Congress of Textual Analysis: Tramas de la Verdad (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain), and „Refugio del Séptimo Arte. Estrategias narrativas del documental de autor“ („Refuge for The Seventh Art. Narrative Strategies of Creative Documentary“) in the 1st International Congress of Film Aesthetics: The Illusion of Beauty (Universidad del País Vasco, Spain).

She has also published the articles „La estética (ir)realista. Paradojas de la representación documental“ („(Un)realistic Aesthetics. Paradoxes of Documentary Representation“) and „Deshilando el guión de Balseros. La construcción narrativa en el cine documental“ („Unthreading Balseros´script. Narrative Construction in Documentary Film“) in Doc-Online (edited by Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brasil and Universidade da Beira Interior, Portugal) and „Protagonistas de lo real. La construcción de personajes en el cine documental“ („Protagonists of the Real. Character Construction in Documentary Film“) in Secuencias. Revista de Historia del cine (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid); as well as many reviews of international festivals.

She has also worked as a scriptwriter for an anthropological series for the Basque Television Canal Euskadi (Spain) and is scriptwriter of the documentary „Ecos de la Masía“.

CONTACT:

Aida Vallejo Vallejo

PhD student (Doctorate of History of cinema) - Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)

Faculty of Philosophy and Arts - (Linguistics, Modern languages and Literary Theory Department)

Doctoral thesis supervisor: Maria Luisa Ortega Gálvez

Email: aida_vallejo@yahoo.es

Adress: c/San Andrés, n 64, 3 drcha

Cp: 48510 Trapagaran (Bizkaia)

PAIS VASCO - SPAIN

Tel: 0034 94 404 47 34 (cellular: 0034 655 74 55 77)

Study materials:

Note:

Schedule for winter semester 2009/2010:

	06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
Mon
Tue
Fri
Thu
Fri

Schedule for summer semester 2009/2010:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

• Animovaná tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Dokumentární tvorba - magistr (qualification subject, faculty subject, optional subject)
• Dokumentární tvorba - bakalář (qualification subject, optional subject)
• Animovaná tvorba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Scenáristika a dramaturgie - bakalář (optional subject)
• Scenáristika a dramaturgie - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Režie - bakalář (optional subject)
• Režie - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Kamera - bakalář (optional subject)
• Kamera - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Produkce - bakalář (optional subject)
• Produkce - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Audiovizuální studia - bakalář (optional subject)
• Střihová skladba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Střihová skladba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Zvuková tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Zvuková tvorba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ - bakalář (optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Audiovizuální studia - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ - magistr: restaurování (faculty subject, optional subject)