Feminine resistances: The figure of the Republican woman in Carolina Astudillo’s documentary cinema

Abstract

Abstract Since the early years of democracy in Spain, the figure of the Republican woman has been recovered, rehabilitated and reclaimed (albeit somewhat tepidly and as a minor part of the narrative) in documentaries as well as in fictional films. In terms of documentary, however, the filmography of Carolina Astudillo stands out. Astudillo is the author of several short films and a feature-length film in which she defends the importance of the role that women played in the Civil War, the rear-guard and the anti-Francoist resistance. This article seeks to analyse, from the perspective of gender, her film El gran vuelo/The Great Flight (2014) with the aim of showing the ways in which the documentarian – using the story of Clara Pueyo Jornet, a communist militant who disappeared in 1943 – gives shape to the memory of all women who disappeared without trace. We seek to show how Astudillo develops a case against the gender discrimination that continues to dominate the imaginary of the Civil War, and at the same time reflect on the imbrication of biography and history, past and present, memory and forgetting.