Summary: As a child of the Spanish Civil War and the repressive post-war era, Carmen Martin Gaite found kindred spirits among the Madrid literati, led by her future husband Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, during the '50s. In her long and uninterrupted literary career, Gaite chose socially critical topics such as the relationship between the sexes and the differences between provincial and city life. Using...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Raised within the socially restrictive mores of a transient middle-class family and troubled with a stammering problem, Ana Maria Matute took refuge in literature. At 17, she began to use her experiences to probe the themes of lost childhood, injustice, and the lives of the marginalized. She soon developed a fresh prose style that deftly blended fantasy and realism, revitalizing the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Born in Cuba to Chinese parents, award-winning novelist Zoe Valdes has achieved worldwide recognition for portraying the struggles and dreams of women. This program highlights her upbringing, education, and influences, as well as examining several of her most important books, including La Hija del Embajador and Te Di La Vida Entera.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Isabel Allende, the most recent Latin American novelist to bestride the world literary stage-and the first Latin American woman-describes the emotions that inform her fiction and the events that set them in motion. Niece of the deposed (and presumably assassinated) Chilean Marxist president Salvador Allende, she fled Chile in terror and blossomed in exile to write of the love, hate, and revenge...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Born in Barcelona, Rosa Regas has founded two publishing houses and two magazines, as well as written several award-winning novels. In this extended interview, the novelist and journalist discusses several of her books, including Azul, Luna Lunera, and Le Cancion de Dorotea.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes offers insights into the writing of his book La Region mas Transparente, the Boom and Latin American literature, the elevated importance of writers living under dictatorship, his identity as a speaker of Spanish, and the organic unity of the Spanish language. The author of La Silla del Aguila, Diana o la Cazadora Solitaria, El Naranjo, Gringo...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: The Mexican writer and journalist Carlos Monsivais has frequently examined social and political issues at the heart of Latin American culture-and, in the process, the spiritual dilemmas of 21st-century modernity. This program introduces Monsivais' views on the growing disconnect between urban and rural life, the destructive impact of pervasive technology on language and conversation, and the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: What is it like to be a writer? In this program, Spanish novelist Eduardo Mendoza offers his views as he talks about the sheer pleasure of writing, the state of the novel as a literary form, the effect of censorship on writers during the Franco regime, changes in the business of publishing, and repercussions of the Latin American literary Boom. The author of La Ciudad de los Prodigios, La...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This is a story of passion involving two brothers, inseparable in work and play, and a woman who comes between them. Soon all three are trapped in their own hell of jealousy and death. Contains mature themes.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature, Juan Ramon Jimenez was a master of impressionistic language and imagery. This program explores the Spanish poet's life and career with the help of scholarly interviews, archival photographs, and excerpts from Jimenez' writings. Conveying his youthful interest in Romanticism and Symbolism, his subsequent emphasis on color and tonality, and his lifelong...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: A distinguished senior member of the Generation of '98 and Rector of Salamanca University, Miguel de Unamuno considered himself an "ideoclast": someone who breaks in ideas like boots, making them his own by wearing and using them. This program combines documentary material and dramatizations to present the story of a multitalented Spanish philosopher, essayist, novelist, poet, and playwright...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Baroque in style and metaphysical in tone, Arde el Mar established Pere Gimferrer as one of the leading voices of his generation. This program presents an interview with the award-winning poet, who has written collections in both Catalan and Spanish. Along with discussing his aesthetic approach, Gimferrer talks about some of his most recent works, including Mascarada and El Agente Provocador.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Deftly interweaving political concerns into his poetry, Rafael Alberti fashioned a literary style suited to the social turmoil of the 20th century. This program shows the evolution of that style, from the highly personal Marinero en Tierra, to the balance of playfulness and melancholy in El Alba de Alheli, to the mystical and nearly apocalyptic Sobre los Angeles. Detailing Alberti's travels...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: A high school dropout who became one of Chile's most respected writers, Roberto Bolano wrote more than a dozen novels. This program presents an interview with Bolano, author of Amuleto and Los Detectives Salvajes, for which he won the prestigious Romulo Gallegos prize.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Childhood is your native land, and language is your native land-the two elements for a writer, of course, says Mexican author Sergio Pitol. In this program, the Cervantes Prize-winning writer reflects on his love of reading, which began at a very young age, and his lifelong admiration for the works of Jules Verne and Thomas Mann. In addition, the author of El Viaje, El Arte de la Fuga, El...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The writings of Spanish poet Antonio Gamoneda are characterized by their strength, clarity, and contempt for trends. In this program, Gamoneda describes his genesis as a poet, shaped by a childhood of poverty and traumatization by the horrors of the Spanish Civil War; his perception of the radicalizing and revelatory nature and limited influence of poetry; and the relationship he perceives...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Exploring themes of loss and personal transformation, Chilean novelist Antonio Skarmeta has created a resonant and spiritually optimistic body of work. In this program, Skarmeta shares his views on education, tension between generations, the influence of television, and the implications of his own work. The author of The Victory Dance and of Burning Patience-which became the celebrated film Il...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Francisco Umbral's novels and outspoken newspaper columns made the acerbic writer a household name in Spain. In this program, "the angry man of Spanish letters"-in one of his last interviews before his death at age 72-holds forth on topics related, on the one hand, to his deep and unswerving passion for language and writing and, on the other, to Franco: facets of life under the regime and his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Called "a novel of force and charm" by The Washington Post and "sharply observant" by The New York Times, The House of the Spirits earned Isabel Allende paeans of praise, making its author the most unexpected sensation from Latin America since the emergence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In this classic interview, award-winning writer Isabel Allende discusses why she turned to writing novels, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: After the death of Franco and during the transition to a parliamentary monarchy, Spain's cultural life blossomed once again. In this environment, the poetry movement known as "the other sentimentality"-named after the first book of Javier Egea and Luis Garcia Montero-was born, a movement known for its transformation of the personal experience into a collective one so that any reader might...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Believing that a philosopher's chief aim should be to challenge prejudices and useless traditions, Jose Ortega y Gasset promulgated a worldview based on "reason with life as its foundation." This program depicts the life and accomplishments of the famous Spanish intellectual, from his early studies in turn-of-the-century Malaga to his spectacular funeral in Madrid in 1955. Featuring interviews...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: In the four novels of Antagonia, Luis Goytisolo explores the cultural and political milieu of Barcelona in the 1950s and 60s through characters disabused of their youthful ideals. In this interview, the Spanish novelist discusses many of the postmodern strategies and creative considerations involved in writing his ambitious tetralogy.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Equally adept at writing simple love lyrics, surreal works of great complexity, and even epics, Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda was a master of many forms of poetry. This captivating program tells the story of the poet's life and prodigious work, set against the backdrop of the country that inspired him. Readings from his massive oeuvre amply demonstrate his sincere commitment to the Communist...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Considered by many as the first Modernist poet to write in Spanish, Ruben Dario is a major 20th-century literary figure by any reckoning. This program explores his life and work, with attention to both verse and prose achievements. Identifying Azul as the genesis of Spanish-language Modernism, the video also explores Dario's Profane Hymns, which established his prominence among Latin American...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006