Details
Narrated by Earnest Hemingway, The Spanish Earth tells the story of Spains revolutionary struggle through the experience of a single village.
To coincide with the release of Invisible Heroes we’re bringing Joris Iven’s seminal documentary on the Spanish Civil War back to the big screen. Shot in 1937, when the Republican forces were on the retreat, the film is a graphic portrayal of the men and women who resisted Franco’s insurgents.
Director Joris Ivens confronts the viewer with all aspects of the war. The heroism and the horrors, the soldiers fighting fascism and foreign intervention, the trenches, the wounded, and images of Madrid which has been destroyed by German and Italian bombing raids. This is juxtaposed with the relatively peaceful atmosphere of a small village, where a group of farmers work the land to feed the front-line soldiers who are protecting them.
The Spanish Earth is one of the major films on the Spanish Civil War and one of the most important films in Ivens’s career. It was recently included in Sight and Sound Magazine’s ‘Greatest Documentaries of All Time’