Spanish Queer Cinema

Examines filmmaking, festivals, queer lives and cultures in Spain since 1998 There is a lot more to Spanish Queer Cinema than Pedro Almod?var or the gay comedies of the 1990s. A wealth of short films, documentaries and features -- many by, for, or about lesbians -- is at the core of a creative culture responding to exceptionally intense social changes. The country has moved from institutionalising same-sex unions at the regional civic level (from 1998) to legal recognition of same-sex marriage (in 2005). Moving images and the debates and conversations around them have made a stand against homophobia and exclusion, responded to health and welfare crises, questioned or affirmed the value of same-sex marriage, and constructed new forms of love and community. They, and their audiences, build a new Spanish queer imagination. The book opens all this up, and shows some of the wider social contexts and forms of communication which underpin it.

Chris Perriam is Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Manchester