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A war in Hollywood (Hollywood contra Franco)

Oriol Porta
Spain / 2008 / 91 min / Spanish with English subtitles

A war in Hollywood is a featured length documentary about the impact and influence that had the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in Hollywood film production during the years of strife and the evolution of his image over various political periods: from the affection and support towards the Republican cause and the romantic vision of war by many liberal artists and creators, to the upholding Franco’s in the 40’s and 50’s. This evolution is also narrated through the personal story of Alvah Bessie, a short story writer, critic and journalist who fought as a member of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and its close relationship with the modern history of Spain at different periods of his life. The film has been structured in 3 acts divided chronologically as follows:

1)   Impact of the civil war on American Society due to the fact that the Spanish Civil War was the first modern war one who was covered by mass media.

2)   How the political perspective regarding Civil War clearly changes, parallel to the changes in American political developments and the witch hunt issue which affected to several scriptwriters and actors in Hollywood.

3)   The return of Alvah Besie to Spain, who actively participated in the contest with the Lincoln International Brigade.

 Includes scenes of several classic featured movies as The way we were, The snows of Kilimanjaro or For whom the bell tolls among others, and interviews with cinema history experts as Roman Gubern or Patrick MacGilligan, actresses as Susan Sarandon, Hollywood scriptwriters as Arthur Laurents and Walter Bernstein as well as other collaborations which weave a network of different voices to reach out and help us understand both complexity of the conflict as the vision and the commitment of film professionals in a matter that goes beyond their artistic skills.

Oriol Porta  (Lleida, 1959) currently alternates his work as producer and director with teaching. He gives classes on documentary production and project development at the Ramon Llull University in Barcelona as well as at ESCAC, in Terrassa. He began his professional career as a producer of corporate videos, TV advertisements and television programs. During the 1992 Olympics he was in charge of production services for foreign broadcasters at the television news agency, EditMedia. His passion for audiovisual creation led him to set up his own production company, Àrea de Televisió, in 1993. He also produced news and sports reports, documentaries and reports (Nicaragua: demasiadas incógnitas (1994); Diary from Serbia (1994); Ciudadanos bajo Sospecha (1995)), produced TV ads and corporate videos. In 2000 he began specializing in the production of internationally co-produced documentaries. Since then, he has been the Lead Executive Producer of several documentaries: Francisco Boix: a Photographer in Hell (2000), Argentina: 4 Faces of a Bottomless Country,  (2002), aired in Spain, Portugal and Ireland; Viure la música. Escolans de Montserrat or  Orwell; Against the Tide  (2003), etc. A War in Hollywood (2008) -2^nd Award in the Section “History’s Time” in the 53 Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid (Spain)- is his first experience as a feature film director, where he decided to unite his passion for film with his interest in historical and political topics.

New York International Film and Video
- Best Documentary

Labour Film Festival, San Francisco 
 

Mar del Plata International Film Festival 

Australia Spanish Film Festival 

Montreal International FIlm Festival 

Quotes

"First feature directorial effort by Spain-based docu producer Oriol Porta is a solidly crafted mix of personal narrative, archival clips and latter-day interview commentary that's well-suited for international broadcasters.” -Dennis Harvey, VARIETY

"With an excellent film documentation, irreproachable from the historical point of view, the best is the view that the story explains: the personal account and the statements made are fragments of a whole which is reconstructed in the assembly of the film." -Diego Galán, EL PAÍS