CSUF’s Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History will host a Wednesday, May 10, screening of “I’ll Get You Out of Here, Abuelo!” and discussion with director Montse Armengou.
The 2013 film, directed by Armengou and Ricard Belis, explains the declaration by Joan Pinyol, the grandson of a Republican soldier whose body was disinterred from his grave and forcibly transported to the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen) without the knowledge or consent of his family.
General Francisco Franco buried thousands of people in the Valley of the Fallen, a monumental memorial to honor and bury those who fell fighting for his “Glorious Crusade” during the Spanish Civil War. But today, hundreds of families like Pinyol’s are fighting for the right to remove their loved ones and move or return them to be buried near their homes. Their plight is hindered by logistical and political obstacles as told in the documentary.
The screening and discussion begin at 4 p.m. in the Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History’s conference room, Room 360 of the Pollak Library. The event is organized by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History.
Armengou, a Spanish journalist and documentary filmmaker, is the current King Juan Carlos of Spain chair in Spanish culture and civilization at New York University. Her award-winning documentaries include the 2002 film “Franco’s Forgotten Children,” “The Spanish Holocaust” in 2003 and “927 On the Train to Hell” in 2004.