Project Detail

Not Reconciled

Synopsis

During the Spanish civil war and its aftermath, thousands of people were executed and thrown into mass unmarked graves. Today people in Spain are beginning to face up to a past that has remained for 70 years an uneasy alliance of a determination to forget. In Not Reconciled, historic accounts of the civil war, novels, diaries of republican and fascist fighters, are combined with observation of the everyday lives of the villagers.

The voices of the ghosts of Rosa and Carlos, young Spanish civil war republicans echo over the ruins of Belchite in Aragon, Northern Spain as they wait for the discovery of their unmarked graves. They tell the story of the town, talk about their part in the fighting, quarrel and make up, discuss philosophy and history and women’s rights and the terrible aftermath of the civil war. The sounds of wind, the echoes of voices, the crumbling ruins, the slow silent walks of tourists and the seeming oblivion of the present day town next door to those who lost their lives, are overlaid with conversations by the film maker with present day Belchite inhabitants as she tries to penetrate their indifference.

Details

Year: 2010
Type of film: Shorts
Running time: 41 mins
Format: DVCAM
Director: Jill Daniels
Producer: Jill Daniels
Editor: Jill Daniels
Screenwriter: Jill Daniels
Director of Photography: Jill Daniels
Sound: Sandra Milner, Lauren Daniels
Music: David Chapman
Principal cast: Judith Mora Toral, Jose Antonio Garcia

Genre

Woman Director

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

High Ground Films

www.jilldanielsfilms.com

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Experimental Woman Director

The Border Crossing

Director: Jill Daniels

Year: 2011

In this evocative and unique experimental documentary, award winning filmmaker Jill Daniels explores her memories of violence 30 years ago hitchhiking through the Basque country. She searches for the places she hopes will jolt her fading memory. Merging past and present, documentary and fiction she recreates her journey. Diving further into this world she discovers other women, Maria and Aitziber, also changed by violence. Maria is a photographer who lives alone and has survived a car crash but her niece was killed. Her dead father was sentenced to death in the civil war in Spain and she holds close his prison diary. Aitziber is a young Basque nationalist who spent five years in prison and for five days after her arrest was tortured by the Spanish police. Together these stories, build a mosaic of impressions of the past and present. As Daniels comes to the end of her journey she realizes she can't be free of the past. She has come full circle.