About Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca (Fuente Vaqueros, 1898 - near Alfacar, 1936) is one of the most brilliant poets in Spain’s literary history. An emblematic figure from the Spanish art and literary avant-garde along with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, and member of the Generation of ‘27 alongside Luis Cernuda, Vicente Aleixandre and Dámaso Alonso, since his assassination, Lorca has also become the immortal symbol of the tragedy that Spain experienced during the Spanish Civil War. On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía has become the venue for the most important exhibition dedicated to the author to date. The film cycle, About Federico García Lorca, conceived as part of this exhibition, features the latest audiovisual pieces dedicated to the writer in our country, as well as the few film images that have been preserved of him, interviews with family members and friends and witnesses to the intense and passionate life and work of this universal poet.
The pieces in the programme include two fictional works and five documentaries. The first fiction piece is Viaje a la luna (1998), the only screenplay written by Federico García Lorca, which was adapted and directed by the painter Frederic Amat (Barcelona, 1952). The second film FGL. De Granada a la luna (1998) includes twelve short pieces made by different artists.
The documentaries, in turn, present a complete view of the poet’s life, beginning with the official documentary prepared by the National Commission for the Centenary of Federico García Lorca, Retrato de familia (1998), directed by John J. Healey and produced by José Luis López Linares and Javier Rioyo. Los viajes de Lorca (1998), a triptych made up of the documentaries by Manuel Palacio, Lorca en Nueva York, Lorca y La Habana by Juan Carlos Tabío (Havana, 1943), and Lorca en el río de La Plata, by Eduardo Mignona (Buenos Aires, 1940-2006). The final pieces include a work entitled FGL. Imágenes, palabras (1998), directed by Rafael Zarza (Havana, 1944), a part of the exhibition with the same name, and Tardará mucho en nacer (1998) by Tino Calabuig, which depicts the last moments of Federico García Lorca’s life through the testimony of the figures involved in his seizure and subsequent assassination.
