Country: Spain
Year: 1961
Duration: 12'
An account of the feast day of the dead, November 1st, in Madrid. From dawn to dusk, the film follows the various rituals that take place on this day in the cemetaries. “A film about the funerary industry that is based, in particular, on the day dedicated to commemorating the dead. At no time did we attempt to slip into black humor. The shooting took place in the public cemetery of Madrid, where many Spanish intellectuals and politicians of the 19th century and early 20th century are buried. The film talks about the feast day of the dead in Madrid, the many visitors to the cemetaries, their architecture and the small speculation that revolves around this event. This short film was made in collaboration with Julián Marcos and Uninci S.A., the same which made Viridiana, and of which I was, and still am, I think, a member. The film wasn’t released because it didn’t pass the control of the censors.” (J. Jordà)
Biography
film director
Joaquín Jordá
Joaquín Jordá (Santa Coloma de Farnès, Spain, 1935 - Barcelona, 2006) began studying law in 1951. The next year he abandoned his studies and became secretly involved in the PSUC (Pardido Socialista Unificado de Catalunya), the Catalonian branch of the Spanish Communist Party. In 1956 he got married and moved to Madrid to study cinema. Four years later he shot his first short film, Día de los muertos (1960), in collaboration with Juliàn Marcos. Over the next 6 years he divided his time between Madrid and Barcelona, fathered two children and separated from his wife. In 1967 he and his friend Jacinto Esteva Grewe co-directed the film Dante no es únicamente severo, which was heralded as the manifesto of the future “School of Barcelona.” He moved to Italy after various projects of his failed, including the adaptation of Un lloc entre els morts by the author María Aurèlia Capmany, with whom he short an introductory documentary entitled María Aurèlia Capmany parla de “Un lloc entre els morts” (1969). He dedicated himself to militant cinema and political activity for 4 years in Italy, working for PCI (Italian Comunist Party). In 1973 he moved back to Barcelona, where he began working as a translator and in 1979 he directed his next film, Numax presenta..., a militant movie about the selfmanagement of a factory in Barcelona. He moved back to Madrid in 1983 and became famous as a screenwriter, working primarily with his friend Vicente Aranda. 1990 marked his return to cinema: Dària Esteva commissioned a film about her father – Jacinto Esteva Grewe – which is entitled El encargo del cazador. During the early 1990s he alternated his activity as a screenwriter in Madrid with teaching activity at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona and in 1996 he directed Un cos al bosc. In June 1997 he suffered a cerebral stroke, causing agnosia and permanent alexia. He settled down in Barcelona and began a new phase of his life, dedicated to the creation of unclassifiable documentary films: Monos como Becky (1999), De nens (2003), Veinte años no es nada (2004). In mid-2005, after the shooting of Literaturas de l’exili, he was diagnosed with cancer, but Jordá didn’t allow himself to become discouraged. He continued to work and completed two films, Ictus and Descontrol urbano. On June 24th, after completing the editing of Más allá del espejo, Jordá died in Barcelona. A few days later, the Spanish Ministry of Culture conferred on him the national cinematography award.
FILMOGRAFIA
Día de los muertos (co-regia/co-director Julián Marcos, cm, doc., 1961), Dante no es únicamente severo (co-regia/co-director Jacinto Esteva Grewe, 1967), María Aurèlia Capmany parla de Un lloc entre els morts (mm, doc., 1969), Portogallo, paese tranquillo (mm, doc., 1969), Il perché del dissenso (cm, doc., 1969), I tupamaros ci parlano (doc., 1969), Lenin vivo (mm, doc., 1970), Spezziamo le catene (co-regia/co-director Ivo Barnabó Micheli, 1971), Numax presenta… (doc., 1979), El encargo del cazador (doc., 1990), Un cos al bosc (1996), Monos como Becky (doc., 1999), De nens (2003), Veinte años no es nada (doc., 2004), Literaturas de l’exili (doc., 2005), Ictus (cm, doc., 2005), Descontrol urbano (cm, doc., 2006), Más allá del espejo (doc., 2006)