CARTAS VIVAS by Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles

María Campo Alange (María Laffitte) - Lilí Álvarez - Consuelo Berges

Instituto Cervantes, in collaboration with the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain, presents a new chapter of the Carta Vivas project, curated by Professor Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles.

These three series of audiovisual cartasvivas correspond to three key women essential for understanding the course of the feminist movement during the dictatorship and the beginning of the transition: María Campo Alange (María Laffitte) (1902–1986), founder of the Women’s Sociological Studies Seminar and prolific writer, portrayed by Ascen López, with a script drawn from her memoirs; Consuelo Berges (1899–1988), an adventurous writer who survived the dictatorship thanks to her extensive work as a translator, with Maite Jiménez dramatizing a script based on various correspondence archives and interviews; and finally Lilí Álvarez (1905–1998), “the señorita” at Wimbledon, with Montserrat Roig de Puig conveying the temperament of this athlete and theologian who advocated for women’s emancipation through the liberation and strengthening of the body.

From the inner exile of Berges the translator, to Campo Alange who, at the end of her life, confesses the impact that the lack of sexual education had on her life and her feminist commitment, and passing through Lilí Álvarez’s refusal to consider the female body as sinful, the discreet lives of these women during the dictatorship conceal three powerful pioneering temperaments. Ascen López, Maite Jiménez, and Montse Roig bring us closer to their light and shadows in CARTASVIVAS, a library of women’s memory in an online audiovisual format, a project by the University of Exeter and Fundación Banco de Santander.

This event will include the screening of the short films and a roundtable with the curator and the actresses.

Event in English.