Female stardom in Spain: a brief journey through the history of Spanish cinema through its actresses

Date and time: Wednesday, Oct. 29th. 5.30 p.m.

Venue/room: Espacio Fundación Telefónica

Free admission with prior registration at:

www.espacio.fundaciontelefonica.com

Simultaneous translation, in sign language and streaming.

Host: Carlota Álvarez Basso, co-director of the festival.

Title: Female stardom in Spain: a brief journey through the history of Spanish cinema through its actresses

Type of activity: Meeting

Participants:

• María Adell / researcher, teacher and film critic / Spain

Rereading the history of Spanish cinema through its most iconic actresses, underlining the way in which they were able to embody gender discourses, which were hegemonic in each era, or to highlight their contradictions or resist them. We will talk about how actresses, divas and “folklorics” such as Aurora Bautista, Emma Penella, Sara Montiel, Lola Flores or Marisol embodied, during the Francoism, models of femininity that were often complex and contradictory, as well as the new feminine archetypes that emerged in the cinema of the transition and the early democracy, incorporated into the modern image of new stars such as Mercedes Sampietro,  Ángela Molina, Carmen Maura and Victoria Abril.

María Adell Carmona is a teacher and researcher. She holds a PhD from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and is currently a lecturer in the Department of Library Science, Documentation and Audiovisual Communication at the University of Barcelona. She regularly writes about film and television in media such as the newspaper Ara, Filmtopia and Rockdelux. She has written articles and book chapters on film stars, actresses in the cinema of the Franco regime and the transition, female representations in film and television, Spanish cinema and popular culture. For more than a decade, she belonged to the teaching staff of the ESCAC-Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya, where she taught film history and Spanish cinema and co-directed the Master's Degree in Film Studies and Visual Cultures.