The Scots voice of the Spanish revolution [Embedded DivX video 1hr15m; also downloadable] Ethel MacDonald was a young working class Scots woman who hitch-hiked to Barcelona to do her part in the war. There she became the English-language voice of the anarchist movement as a radio station announcer. Newspapers at home dubbed her the "Scottish Scarlet Pimpernel" for her role in helping comrades escape the crackdown that followed the May Days. Her remarkable story is told in this recent drama-documentary.
posted by Abiezer on Feb 1, 2008 - 12 comments

The Free Voice of Labour [Flash video 57.11] traces the history of a Yiddish anarchist newspaper publishing its final issue after 88 years. One of 200+ films on anarchist and related themes at the ChristieBooks channel on Brightcove. Other films include Gordon Carr's documentary on the Angry Brigade, a wealth of Spanish-language material on the civil war and revolution, a Russian-language biopic of Nestor Makhno, the story of the Bonnot Gang and a history of Uruguay's Tupamaros. In other news, Franco is dead.
posted by Abiezer on May 9, 2007 - 10 comments

Behind Iron Bars. A short comic of the Spanish Civil War. From the latest, international comics, edition of Words Without Borders.
posted by OmieWise on Feb 15, 2007 - 8 comments

Pan's Labyrinth the new movie by director Guillermo del Toro (Devil's Backbone) is a fairy tale for grownups. Certainly not a new idea, stories like Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia have elements that appeal to adults, but Pan's Labyrinth is perhaps unique in that it's not at all suitable for children.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jan 28, 2007 - 162 comments

George Orwell né Eric Arthur Blair is probably best known to readers for his eerily prescient novels 1984 and Animal Farm. This comprehensive Orwell site betrays an erudite, complex, fascinating personality who wrote about a variety of subjects, from an exposition on British class relations affecting the art and practice of murder, to the complex moral compromises of Gandhi's practice of non-violent resistance, to the doublespeak-laden corruption of the English language as a telling reflection of a corrupt, brutal, post-WWII culture — and much, much more. This site also includes Russian translations of much of Orwell's work.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Aug 21, 2006 - 21 comments

"I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately." – George Orwell, writing about the revolutionary war which started 70 years ago yesterday: July 19th, 1936. Also: Anarchism and the Spanish Civil War. The Visual Front: Posters of The Spanish Civil War. Photos from the Spanish Civil War. Films from the CNT (National Confederation of Labour), 1936-1938.
posted by Len on Jul 20, 2006 - 28 comments

They Still Draw Pictures. Drawings made by children during the Spanish Civil War.
posted by plep on Oct 17, 2003 - 10 comments

The Power of Art? This interesting article becomes extremely clever if you think about some of the basic history of "Guernica". Little-known artist Picasso (see '37 for initial ideas, '45 for completed painting) was commissioned to paint it after the horrific slaughters of the Spanish Civil War. “...Picasso's tour de force would become one of this century's most unsettling indictments of war.” (more inside)
posted by valval22 on Feb 6, 2003 - 11 comments