Broadcasting modernity in 1968 Spain

• Art History, Film and Visual Studies research seminar

Speaker: Noemi De Haro García, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Venue: Barber Photograph Room, Barber Institute of Fine Arts

Abstract:

In 1966 a second television channel started regular broadcasting in Spain. The innovative character and the high quality of the series produced for this channel are usually mentioned in Spanish television history accounts. In the last decade of the dictatorship the second television channel, directed by Salvador Pons Muñoz, offered a space for experimentation to its young staff members, many of whom had been trained as filmmakers at the Escuela Oficial de Cine (Official Film School).

This paper will analyse the program Último grito. This series is unanimously considered as an avant-garde production for its time and is still presented as an example in the training of film and television students in Spain. Important icons in Spanish culture started their audiovisual careers in Último grito, among them are for example the cult filmmaker Iván Zulueta or the presenter José María Íñigo. The show included documentaries, music videos, film parodies and sketches and was aimed at a young and modern audience. What characteristics should modern youth have according to this program, how it dialogued both with the “other” television channel and with other contemporary cultural productions, and what role could such a program have played in the last years of the dictatorship will be addressed in this paper.