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From Salamanca to Nowhere (De Salamanca a Ninguna Parte)

Chema de la Peña
Spain / 2002 / 81 min / Spanish with English subtitles

This feature length documentary explains the creation of the movement during the Conversaciones de Salamanca until its decadence and death just a few years later. During the decade of the 50s’, a group of young and passionate filmmakers committed to show the reality of Spain through a critical and innovative filmmaking style. The neo-realist New Spanish Cinema movement of the 1950s was born. Taking its title from the city where these filmmakers met in 1955 to formulate their principles, director Chema de la Peña intercuts interviews with film clips and newsreel material from the period. An array of big names, including Miguel Picazo, Carlos Saura, José Luis Borau and Mario Camus, provide witty and thought-provoking reflections on their time at the impoverished Madrid Film School, their struggles to raise funds from a sceptical establishment, and their early sociocritical efforts, now considered film classics.