The dark history of Spain’s Franco era, including the punishing persecution of the LGBTQ community, is the subject of this absorbing and unsettling documentary. Filmmaker Andrea Weiss (Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story, Frameline25) crafts a thorough and thoughtful portrayal of how a fascist regime affected multiple generations. This moving documentary is centered around the poetry and actions of famed Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, a longtime symbol of the gay movement in the Franco dictatorship. His words capture the heart and soul of a country that still struggles to confront its bloody past.

Weiss builds this complicated story through interviews with contemporary thought leaders and people who lived through the traumatic Franquismo era. First-person stories and shocking film footage paint the picture of a society in which gay men and gender-nonconforming people were consistently beaten and arrested. All of this horrific history leads to a modern-day discussion about the best way to raise the voices of more than 120,000 victims of the Franco regime, including García Lorca, who are buried in unmarked graves across the country. This tangible representation of a country’s suppressed identity, and its attempts to exhume its history, is at the center of this powerful and profound documentary.

— BRENDAN PETERSON