Summary: Despite the political and economic chaos of the 19th century-or perhaps because of it-this period produced brilliant literature while setting the stage for the Generation of '98. In this program, respected authorities elaborate on the lives and works of the masters of Romanticism and Realism. Dramatic readings include excerpts from Jose Espronceda's Cancion del Pirata, Jose Zorrilla's Romances...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Marco Antonio de la Parra has been acclaimed as one of the best playwrights and novelists of Chile's new generation of writers, and his works of have been performed at venues including the GALA Hispanic Theatre, in Washington, D.C., and Joseph Papp's Festival Latino, in New York. This outstanding program features an interview with the writer, scenes from a performance of his Madrid/Sarajevo,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: As the 1970s progressed, the political climate in Latin America became increasingly dark, with no end in sight to the proliferation of brutal dictatorships. This program analyzes the cultural impact of those developments and the tensions which gave Latin American literature of the period its energy and resonance. With insight into the challenges of writing in the face of tyranny, the program...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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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
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Summary: One of Spain's foremost women writers, Ana Maria Matute has displayed a recurring fascination with the Spanish Civil War and the defenselessness of children and the poor. Framed within the context of an appearance by Matute at the Real Academia Espanola de la Lengua, this program travels to Barcelona and locales in Spain's Rioja region. Excerpts from Olvidado rey Gudu and El rio demonstrate a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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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
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Summary: Filmed at locations throughout Spain, this program offers a literary retrospective of one of the leading poets of the Generation of '98, Antonio Machado. Machado scholar Jose Carlos Gallardo and Manuel Nunez Encabo of the Antonio Machado Foundation provide insightful commentary on the poet's life and works, including Soledades, Nuevas Canciones, Juan de Mairena, and his masterpiece, Campos de...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: An award-winning novelist and regular contributor to the newspaper El Pais, Antonio Munoz Molina is also the youngest member of the Spanish Royal Academy. This program presents an in-depth interview with Molina. The writer discusses a number of works from across his career, including Der Putsch, Der Nie Stattfand; Beltenebros; Los Misterios de Madrid; and Ardor Guerrero.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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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
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Summary: After the horrors of World War I, Latin American writing turned away from what many saw as ornamental and frivolous experimentation. This program studies the so-called "criticism of Modernismo within Modernismo" in which language reached back to a simpler, more intimate, less urban-centered framework. Investigating the work of several poets and authors of the period-including Enrique Gonzalez...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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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 2009
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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
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Summary: The mere name, Clarin, the notorious novelist and Spanish literary critic, was enough to turn a 19th-century writer's blood cold. His biting and often bellicose articles made him the nation's most feared critical voice. This program, produced by RTVE, is a dramatization of Clarin's most famous work, La Regenta (The Professor's Wife), generally considered the greatest Spanish naturalistic novel...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: To the European imagination, America was a tabula rasa, a virgin territory. As this program describes, narrative art forms were essential to making sense of this exotic Eden and the possibilities it offered. New Spain became a place for re-creating myths and legends of the Western literary canon, for transforming poetry, prose, and epic literature. The diaries of Columbus, Bartolome de las...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This program weaves art, music, and literature with Western culture to explore the enormous impact of Cervantes' classic on our world today. Artists, critics, and others, from novelist Carlos Fuentes to General Norman Schwarzkopf, reveal how the work-the most translated in history-has affected their lives. Mixing discussions of the text with music, poems, other writings influenced by Don...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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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: Initially trained as a classical pianist, Lorca became one of Spain's greatest poets and dramatists. This program weaves archival footage with dozens of photos and manuscripts to examine his work, his influences, and his friendships with other luminaries, including Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, and Pablo Neruda. Such poetic works as Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, Poema del Cante Jondo, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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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
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Summary: Recognized from an early age as a poet of remarkable ability, the writer who was to become known as Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American woman to be awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize, in 1945. Composed of archival footage and commentary from scholars and friends who discuss the personal events that affected her life and infused her work with its themes of tragic love and unfulfilled...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in 1928 in Colombia, where he was raised by grandparents in a house filled with countless aunts and rumors of ghosts. This program examines the Nobel Laureate's literary works for traces of a life story that has been as fascinating as any novel. Recollections by the renowned author, recounted in his own voice, bring to light some of his many memories of his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: At the heart of the Generation of '27 lies experimentation with a host of popular artistic as well as political "isms" including neo-Gongorism, Ultraism, Creationism, Surrealism, socialism, and communism. In this program, renowned experts profile key members of this post-World War I group. Dramatic readings include excerpts from Luis Cernuda's Donde Habite el Olvido, Rafael Alberti's "Cita...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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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
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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