Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF
Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF
Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF
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Spanish Colonial Cinema: Contours and<br />
Singularities<br />
Alberto Elena<br />
Despite the fact that the Spanish colonial cinema, as a matter <strong>of</strong><br />
course, fails to appear in relevant specialised studies on an<br />
international scale and has not even received the attention it certainly<br />
deserves from the nation’s own historians and scholars, an initial<br />
recognition is in order and that is to say that Spain has a far from<br />
negligible colonial film heritage. Although, logically, many <strong>of</strong> these<br />
films can at the same time be attributed to other specific genres and<br />
subgenres (melodramas, thrillers, adventure films...), several dozen<br />
titles -varying considerably in nature and quality – do in fact recount<br />
the Spanish presence in Cuba, the Philippines and the African<br />
enclaves, producing a sweeping colonial fresco which, however, has<br />
received much less attention than that accorded by the British,<br />
French, Italian, German or even the Belgian<br />
cinemas to their respective possessions. An indepth<br />
review <strong>of</strong> the Spanish colonial cinema – a<br />
task clearly beyond the scope <strong>of</strong> this paper,<br />
which is an advance <strong>of</strong> a more extensive study<br />
currently in progress – will assuredly provide a<br />
few surprises and very probably reveal an<br />
identity <strong>of</strong> its own with respect to the<br />
contemporary contributions <strong>of</strong> other European<br />
powers.<br />
As the invention <strong>of</strong> the cinematograph<br />
practically coincided in time with the loss <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Spanish possessions in America and the Pacific,<br />
it is to be expected that Spain’s colonial cinema<br />
would have necessarily been characterised by<br />
an unequivocal African slant. In effect, although Los Últimos de<br />
Filipinas (Antonio Román, 1945) ranks among the most<br />
outstanding titles <strong>of</strong> the genre, the films devoted to the Spanish<br />
presence in the Pacific are very few in number. Noche sin cielo<br />
(Ignacio F. Iquino, 1947) and Aquellas palabras (Luis Arroyo, 1948)<br />
are clearly in debt to the interest in the region awakened by that<br />
noteworthy and successful film by Román, although neither was able<br />
to even remotely match its historical fortune. Aquellas palabras,<br />
together with Misión blanca (Juan de Orduña, 1946), filmed two<br />
years earlier and centred on Guinea, nonetheless initiated an<br />
emblematic subgenre <strong>of</strong> the Spanish colonial cinema in the period <strong>of</strong><br />
the Franco regime, featuring the missionaries sent to the colonies,<br />
which was practically without a parallel in the history <strong>of</strong> other<br />
European cinemas. The possibilities <strong>of</strong> this subgenre – evidently<br />
29 <strong>Journal</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Film</strong> <strong>Preservation</strong> / 63 / 2001<br />
José Nieto and Armando Calvo in<br />
Los últimos de Filipinas, Antonio Román (1945),<br />
courtesy <strong>of</strong> La <strong>Film</strong>oteca Española, Madrid