More than nostalgia: the Filmoteca connects 50 years of women filmmakers and collective struggle

BarcelonaBetween May 27 and 30, 1976, the paranimph of the University of Barcelona brought together more than three thousand women who packed a space where current legislation today indicates a maximum permitted capacity of four hundred people. The success of the First Catalan Women's Congress was overwhelming. The women came from a dictatorship that had relegated them and aspired to many changes. Furthermore, they came hand in hand with the most diverse social and political sectors. Fifty years after that milestone, the Filmoteca de Catalunya has not wanted to limit itself to an exercise in historical nostalgia, but rather proposes a dialogue between generations and inspiration to imagine futures. The exhibition Film Feminisms 1976-2026, curated by Alexandra Laudo, with the advice of Anna Solà and Marta Selva and the film editing by Pilar Monsell, demonstrates how the camera can break down walls and inspire new futures. It can be visited until November 29.

"When I began to delve deeply into the First Congress, I was not sufficiently aware of its relevance or impact, nor that it made possible many of the rights that the women of the generations that followed enjoyed –explains Laudo–. We have not opted for the gray aesthetic that is sometimes used with archival material, because we wanted to recover that spirit, which was committed and combative, but also the feeling of joy, celebration, and confidence in collective strength. Archives do not speak of the past, but are a repository of hopes and a place of possibilities for the construction of the imaginary," she adds.

The exhibition features nine screening spaces, organized around a plaza, each dedicated to one of the major axes debated in 1976: work, neighborhoods, family, education, media, politics, legislation, rurality, and sexuality. The discussion on sexist violence, which at the time inherently permeated the debates but did not have its own space, has been intentionally maintained as an invisible transversal axis that runs through the entire exhibition. "We did not want to take a historicist view, but rather to question our present –states the director of the Filmoteca, Pablo La Parra Pérez–. The Congress acts as a catalyst to navigate the collection, and what we can see is an agora where 55 women filmmakers dialogue; it is a great conversation between generations," he adds.

From Eugènia Balcells to Carla Simón

The work of some of the artists who were part of that moment is included, such as Eugènia Balcells (Barcelona, 1943), Fina Miralles (Sabadell, 1950), Emma Cohen (Barcelona, 1946 - Madrid, 2016) and Mari Chordà (Amposta, 1942), and others born in democracy, such as Hajar B. Boujtat (Morocco, 1995), Carla Simón (Barcelona, 1986) and Mar Coll (Barcelona, 1981). Each space shows fragments of films, video art pieces and television reports created exclusively by women. All material comes from the Filmoteca's own archives. "They are fragments, but it is also an invitation to delve deeper, a prelude to discovering many of the films and books that the Filmoteca's library holds," says Laudo.

"Feminism promotes new ways of looking and creating, a new language and new perspectives. It is committed cinema made by committed women who move us, but who are also capable of moving wills. At moments like these, we lack a critical perspective," assures the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández Almodóvar. For her part, Carmina Gustrán, commissioner of the Spanish government's program "Spain in Freedom. 50 Years of Democracy", emphasizes the importance of reviewing the past in the current context. "We must rethink what memory is for and how it helps us build the future. Especially at a time of democratic setbacks, it is important to remember all this energy, the feeling that change was possible," she assures.

The exhibition also contextualizes the conferences that took place at the Paranimf of the University of Barcelona. In 1976, much was said about how to communicate, how to make debates known, and, above all, how to go beyond the university premises to expand the discussion with the aim of having a social and political impact. Imaginative and creative practices were used to give visibility to everything that had remained silent until then. Spaces were created to facilitate creation and meeting, such as the first Women's Bookstore in the State (on Lledó street in Barcelona) or the mythical feminist bar-library La Sal.