Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Spanish Films as a Tool for Historical Memory Recovery

Come and learn from Dr. Robert Casas who will explore how documentary filmmakers exposed many of the atrocities committed during the dictatorship of Fascist General Francisco Franco, including the kidnapping of minors, the thousands of missing people believed to be buried in mass graves, or the deportations of Franco's opponents to Nazi concentration camps. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) ended with the victory of General Franco who, thanks to the support of Hitler and Mussolini, established a dictatorship that lasted until he died in 1975. The repression committed during his rule hasn't been, to the present days, fully exposed and many of the victims are still waiting for justice and reparation.

These documentaries serve as a means of compensating victims in the absence of the Spanish state's policies acknowledging the scope of the dictator's crimes.