Re-politicizing Documentary Footage from the Transición in Spain: Images, Representation and the Digital Age*

Abstract

Abstract The 2008 financial debacle and the resulting protracted socio-political crisis have found political expression in the recent documentaries of a new generation of Spanish film-makers. Their body of work conceptualizes their current political struggles by mirroring visual accounts of the 1970s that were excluded from the dominant discourses on the Spanish transition to democracy. Many of these documentary film-makers openly borrow images from that period, and by appropriating and re-politicizing this previously unseen footage from the Transición, they expose the deficiencies of the process and the latter’s tenacious impact on Spain’s democracy. This essay will examine strategies of appropriation from a regional perspective by analysing four documentaries from Andalusia, Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque Country respectively: El caso ‘Rocío’ (José Luis Tirado, 2013) Cine Clube Carlos Varela (Ramiro Ledo Cordeiro, 2005), La matança del porc (Isaki Lacuesta, 2012) and Democráticos tiranos (a collective work produced by Chema Mascareña, 2013).