Postmemory of the Spanish Civil War: Cinematographic constructions of the conflict in the twenty-first century

Abstract

The Spanish Civil War has been the most frequently portrayed conflict on the large screen in Spanish cinema. It has been narrated from the points of view of both winners and losers and of those who experienced the war directly and indirectly. Most audiovisual works about this topic have been feature-length films that narrate the memory of those who lived through the conflict. However, in the twenty-first century, young film-makers have chosen to narrate their vision of the war through a different cinematographic format and language: the short film. This article analyses how a generation of film-makers born in democracy narrates the Civil War through the genre of the short film, a format that, oriented towards a young audience, shares its new codes, style and audio-visual language. This article will analyse short films, set between 1936 and 1939, that were produced in Spain in the last decade.