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While documentary films have reflected the increased diversity and visibility of Latin American immigrants in Spanish cinema by exploring the experience of both South American and Caribbean women in Spain, there has been a tendency in Spanish fiction films to focus on the lives of Caribbean characters from Cuba and the Dominican Republic. This article argues that with the release of Amador in 2010, Fernando León de Aranoa ruptures this propensity to render invisible the existence, experiences, and knowledges of other Latin American immigrants in fiction film by creating Marcela, the Peruvian protagonist. By focusing its narrative on Marcela, Amador considers the potential that the immigrant's point of view—in Marcela's case one that is informed by the Quechua-Andean concept of tinkuy—has to facilitate socioeconomic mobility and agency of female immigrants and to positively impact the Spanish discourse around the contentious topic of immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses current examples of modern Spanish documentary filmmaking. The two examples, "En construcción," by José Luis Guerín, and "El cielo gira," by Mercedes Álvarez, both focus on the problem of the exploitation of land and the urban transformation affecting Spanish society since the 1950s. Both examples propose the use of nostalgia as a way to resist modernization. They both also discuss the way in which space is an ever-changing landscape which is constantly being changed by its inhabitants. The two films leave little hope for the viewer as it shows material modernization as being bound up with the failures of the political/cultural modernization.

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Copyright of Historia y Comunicación Social is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)