Films

El perro negro takes a clichés braking view of the Spanish Civil War trough a mesmerizing found footage collage. The saga begins in 1929 with the talented amateur filmmaker, Joan Salvans, son of a wealthy Catalan industrialist, of Terrassa. The Salvans were the object of admiration as one of the most successful wool manufacturer of Catalonia, but also of hatred by the emerging anarchists and socialist trade unionists. On 24 July 1936, six days after the Civil War broke out; a militant anarchist group led by 'Pedro el Cruel' kills Joan Salvans, filmmaker, and his father Francesc Salvans. A cyclist, not far from their house, finds their bodies 'La Barata'. Just about the same time when Joan's life unfortunately ends, a new saga of the other young clandestine filmmaker, Ernesto Noriega picks up the story line to guide us through his adventures. He is arrested and almost executed, but luckily survives and secretly film the prison and on way to Madrid. The twentieth century saw an unprecedented vitality of the Spanish spirit, but also an unpredictably sharp conflict between old and new, developed North and feudal South. What drove the anarchist 'Pedro el Cruel' to murder Salvans? And why did the Spanish army revolt against the Republic 1936? While searching for answers we travel through Spain's chaotic decade with the images and stories of several amateur filmmakers and their memories focusing on all sides of the front like republicans, anarchists, Communist, and the foreigner Brits, Germans, Italians, Americans, who fought on both side.

El perro negro telling personal dramas, faults, faiths, illusions and desperation, the unseen side of an insane war. The workers self-government experiments, the multitude sufferings of civilians, the schism of the divided country, the revolutionary illusions, murders and the systematic massacres orgies of Franco's brutality changed once and for ever the universe of Unamuno, Lorca, Bunuel, Hernandez, Durruti, the royalists, replica orologi and the Falangists. The rise, and fall of ideas, the final personal losses come near to our eyes. The unseen private films reveal the cruel and beautiful sides of the Spanish times - as a prelude to the World War II.