From the Barcelona School to Pere Portabella\u27s workshop: The film loop as political strategy in late Francoist Spain

This dissertation explores the avant-garde films of the Barcelona School and Pere Portabella\u27s workshop from 1957 to 1975. It challenges the long-held belief that the surrealist and dadaist film experiments produced by these groups are signs of their political disengagement under Francisco Franco\u27s dictatorship at a pivotal period, known as the apertura or political opening, in Spain\u27s modern history. This investigation examines the form of the cinematic loop in late Francoist film and shows how these fringe groups employ highly political strategies in their reappropriation of this form to expose the Francoist homogenizing, nationalist discourse and interrupt its proliferation. It studies the distinct approaches to filmmaking, the exhibition of and disruption to the Francoist cinematic loops, and the construction of an active spectator in the films of Jacinto Esteva Grewe, Joaquim Jordà, Vicente Aranda, Carlos Duran, José Maria Nunes, and Pere Portabella\u27s interdisciplinary workshop involving Luis Buñuel, Joan Brossa, Caries Santos, and Joan Miró