There’s more Spain beyond the sea? Contemporary documentaries on Equatorial Guinea

Abstract

In the last decade of the twenty-first century, the colonial issue between Spain and Equatorial Guinea has been approached with greater interest than in previous periods, and numerous theses, research works and books have attempted to broach an issue that is little known in Spanish society. We start from the hypothesis that colonial relations between Spain and Africa are gaining greater interest in the Spanish academic world, and especially in the artistic field; where a notable number of film directors have dealt with the subject of Equatorial Guinea in their documentaries, in an attempt to seek keys to understanding aspects related to colonialism, racism, memory and Afro-descendance. This article presents five contemporary documentary films. These documentaries are: Un día vi diez mil elefantes (One Day I Saw 10,000 Elephants) (Guimerà and Pajares 2015: 00:77:00); El escritor de un país sin librerías (The Writer from a Country without Bookstores) (Serena 2019: 00:79:00), Manolito Nguema (Grunfeld 2019: 00:85:00); Anunciaron Tormenta (A Storm Was Coming) (Vázquez 2020: 00:88:00) and A todos nos gusta el plátano (We all Like Plantain) (Bermúdez 2021: 00:60:00).