Hispanic and Latin American Film Club presents:
“Scratching Old Wounds: Blood, Skin, and Touch in Estiu 1993 (Carla Simón, 1993)”
by Dr. Fiona Noble, University of Stirling, Scotland
Fri. March 10, 2023 2:00pm
Via LifeSize https://stream.lifesizecloud.com/extension/17370315/b29ea4b4-4cef-4c0a-a7e2-4e0538e715c6
Abstract: Estiu 1993 (2017) is a critically acclaimed Catalan film and the debut feature-length film of director Carla Simón, who drew inspiration from her own childhood in the making of this autobiographical work.
Set in Barcelona and its rural surroundings in the summer of 1993, the film focuses on 6-year-old Frida (Laia Artigas), who has recently lost both her father and mother to AIDS-related illnesses. Praised for its naturalistic portrait of the child and its eschewal of melodrama, the narrative charts Frida’s navigation of grief, loss, and mortality.
Looking back upon the early 1990s as a period of ultimately unfulfilled promise, the film articulates the legacy of the hedonistic Transition to democracy through concerns around corporeal fragility. Focusing on blood, skin, and touch, I contend that Estiu 1993 traces a genealogy of risk, infection, and contagion as a means of reflecting on the past and its impact on the present.
Fiona Noble is a Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Stirling, Scotland. She is the author of Subversive Spanish Cinema: The Politics of Performance (Bloomsbury, 2020) and has also published on migration, childhood, and intercultural lesbian relationships in contemporary Spanish cinema. Her current research encompasses two key strands: 1) a monograph on the work of Spanish sociorealist filmmaker Fernando León de Aranoa, under contract with Manchester University Press; and 2) the investigation of gender and voice in contemporary Spanish cinema and television/streaming. Forthcoming publications include an article and a book chapter analysing gender and voice in series such as La casa de papel [Money Heist] (2017-2021) and Vis a vis [Locked Up] (2015-2019).
The film Estiu 1993 (Summer 1993) is available via Kanopy for viewing prior to the guest talk.
Experience BU Link: https://experiencebu.brocku.ca/event/231985
