The first feature film by director Humberto Solás extends the role of women as a very significant character. In his opinion, as a victim of discrimination, she has suffered the contradictions of society more acutely than men. For the filmmaker, she is the perfect vehicle to express that struggle. The main characters are female in the trilogy of stories that make up Lucia. In Lucia 1895, a well-to-do woman’s awareness of her country’s war against Spanish colonialism takes on tragic proportions; in Lucia 1933, a young woman from the republican petty bourgeoisie is shaken out of her peaceful existence by the dramatic events that led to the failure of the revolution against the dictator Machado, and is swept up in the whirlwind of events. The desire to live free. Lucia de 1960, is a woman undecided between losing the love of her husband, of deep-rooted machismo, or assuming the place that the Revolution makes it possible for her to occupy. Each story in this film revolves around a woman as a pivot to express the predominant characteristics of the historical moments treated. It is not just about a trio of women named Lucia in different settings and at different times; the links between the stories are the presence of a woman and her attitude during a specific period and her relationships with a man, although Lucia is often described as a feminist film, it is not narrated from a woman’s psychological perspective. The director takes a serious look at the development of women’s political consciousness, recognizes its historical importance and vindicates the imperative of their equal participation in the construction of the Revolution. The most important theme, for me, is the woman as the ideal axis or filter to expose the contradictions of society as a whole and to make society itself uncomfortable at that time.

Rocío is the first film to have been kidnapped and judicially banned in Spain after the repeal of Franco’s censorship in 1977 and the approval of the 1978 Constitution. To this day, the public exhibition of its original version continues to be banned throughout Spain. This feature-length documentary dissects in detail, from an anthropological and historical point of view, the phenomenon of the pilgrimage of El Rocio (Huelva), denouncing the implications and interests of the church, landowners and right-wing forces in this multitudinous Marian pilgrimage. Directed by Fernando Ruiz Vergara, with script and production by Ana Vila, and released in 1980, it is still censored today due to the Supreme Court ruling of 1984, which condemned its author for crimes of slander to whom the film pointed out as the leader of the brutal repression in the town of Almonte, birthplace of the pilgrimage of the Virgin of El Rocío, during the military coup of 1936.

The work was also the only contribution from the peripheral Andalusia to the documentary feature films that emerged in the Spanish cinema of the Transition to feed a critical discourse and the recovery of the memory lost during Franco’s regime.
The judicial persecution of the film meant the end of the director’s career, who went into self-exile in Portugal, where he lived until his death in 2011. Of extraordinary cinematographic quality, «Rocío» is a reference in the history of documentary filmmaking in Spain.

I have to admit that these two films, apart from being controversial, have opened my head like few others, and that is why I cannot fail to mention a couple of actresses who have made history and are unforgettable.

María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña was born on April 8, 1914 in Álamos, Sonora.
Her artistic career began in 1943, participating in El Peñón de las Ánimas, her first film. From then on, her career would take off quickly, and that same year she made the films María Eugenia, la china poblana, Doña Bárbara and La mujer sin alma, her first film. In 1946 she participated in the films La devoradora and Vértigo, in addition to attracting the attention of foreign producers, since she was offered the leading female role in Duel in the sun, but she could not make it because she had the Enamorada project at the door, so the actress Jennifer Jones acted in her place. Faced with the situation of having turned down a Hollywood movie, she commented as follows.
«I will never regret saying no to Hollywood, because my career in Europe had been geared towards quality films. The Indian roles I play in my country and the queen roles abroad».

Marisa Paredes, born in Madrid on April 3, 1946, known as Marisa Paredes, is a Spanish actress with an outstanding theatrical and film career, also developed in countries such as France, Mexico and Italy. Her international and massive recognition among the Spanish public came with the La Mancha director Pedro Almodóvar, who turned her into an «Almodóvar girl»; Marisa acted in films such as Entre tinieblas (1983) and later had leading roles in films such as Tacones lejanos or La flor de mi secreto. For this last film she was nominated for the Goya award as best leading actress.
She continued collaborating with Almodóvar in Todo sobre mi madre (1999), Hable con ella (2002) and La piel que habito (2010).

Almodóvar opened the doors to the international market and thanks to this she was recognized by renowned European film directors and in emblematic productions such as Roberto Benigni’s La vida es bella and Arturo Ripstein’s Profundo Carmesí.

Rosa Echave, known as Rossy de Palma, is a Spanish actress who became famous for being an ‘Almodóvar girl’.

She was one of the protagonists of the movida madrileña, thanks to which she met Pedro Almodóvar, who was beginning to emerge as a director. It was then when he offered her a small role in ‘La ley del deseo’. From that moment on, a fruitful working relationship between director and actress began. The film that helped her gain popularity was ‘Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios’. At the same time, she combined her acting career with work for avant-garde designers such as Thierry Mugler and Jean-Paul Gaultier.

In the 90’s she was nominated for the Goya Award as best supporting actress for her participation in ‘Kika’. She also participated in George Michael’s music video ‘Too Funky’ and made the leap to television as co-host of ‘Estress’ (TVE), along with Loles León and Bibiana Fernández.

She has worked for other directors, such as Álex de la Iglesia, and has a close relationship with French cinema. Currently, she is focused on a more comic side and has returned to Spanish fiction.

Sonia Braga began her acting career when she was only 14 years old, on Brazilian television. At 17 she entered the world of theater and at 19 she was already shooting her first film. Her first international success, once she had become one of the greatest actresses in her country, was Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, directed by Bruno Barreto, and adapted from one of the most important books by the Bahian writer Jorge Amado. In 1983, Barreto directed her alongside Marcello Mastroianni in Gabriela, Cravo and Canela, another great character by Amado. In Brazilian television she has been a central figure of the golden age of the country’s soap operas produced by TV Globo and was the protagonist of works such as Gabriela (1975) and Dancing days (1978).

Cecilia Edith Rotenberg Gutkin, is an Argentine actress of theater, film and TV. She was born in Buenos Aires on August 8, 1956, and is better known as Cecilia Roth.
She began to gain international recognition when she worked with acclaimed director Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s, and starred in 1999’s Oscar-winning Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother). She was awarded twice at the Goya Awards and won the European Film Award for Best Actress, being the only Argentinean and Latin American to receive the award. She also acted in the film Martin H with Federico Luppi. Martin H is a film co-produced by Argentina and Spain, directed by Adolfo Aristarain and released in 1997.

I have nothing but words of admiration and celebration for all these extraordinary women, full of power, talent and beauty and because it is increasingly common in cinema to discover visions that have to do with the current situation of women, from very different points of view, there are more and more women filmmakers, directors, producers and actresses, and society responds, and cinema reflects, with increasing emphasis, a way of approaching the world and its conflicts in which women are increasingly visible and responsible, contrary to the mostly male and patriarchal vision that still predominates in society.