El fotógrafo de Mauthausen/The Photographer of Mauthausen (Targarona 2018): Francesc Boix’s legacy from page to screen

Abstract

El fotógrafo de Mauthausen/The Photographer of Mauthausen () is the first feature film on Spaniards deported to Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War and represents a watershed moment for the country’s collective memory. The film focuses on Francesc Boix, a young Catalan photojournalist who spearheaded a clandestine operation to save photographic evidence of the Nazi’s crimes while a prisoner in Mauthausen. Despite its visual acuity, Targarona’s entry is a complicated addition to the canon of recent concentration camp films, given the director’s positioning of Boix as a macho hero and her counterfactual depictions of Mauthausen. By juxtaposing archival photography with stills from the film, this article traces the recreation of Boix’s experience, as well as how his story has had an enduring impact on the memory of all the Spanish and Catalan survivors of Mauthausen in Spain’s collective imagination.