‘La defensa, por la libertad’ by Pilar Pérez Solano “honours those who fought for democracy”

20/10/2019.- The DOC. Spain section of the Valladolid International Film Festival has premiered La defensa, por la libertad, a documentary that traces the history of the Spanish law from the mid-60s to 1978. The film includes unpublished images and testimonies by prestigious male and female lawyers who hoisted the flags of law, justice, and democracy.

Before the screening of the documentary, director Pilar Pérez Solano pointed out that “we think it is very interesting to revisit the past because we are living in difficult times, and remembering where we came from, what things were like before, what they are like now helps us greatly to know where we stand in a real context”.

During the discussion following the screening, the director was accompanied by Cristina Almeida and Paca Sauquillo, both of them lawyers and politicians who speak in the documentary. Almeida and Sauquillo agree that the archive images in the documentary are very important because they “sum up what we are saying.” Pilar Pérez said that it was thanks to the support of TVE that she was granted access to them.

For her part, Paca Sauquillo admitted that, after watching the documentary, “I am able to understand some of the things said by colleagues whose ideology I didn’t share”, and also stresses that “now it is more important than ever for us to talk about dialogue as a means to solving problems.”

Cristina Almeida was very proud to have taken part in the film, even though the death of her colleagues is still a source of pain for her: “I want to honour those people who didn’t have the chance to enjoy democracy but who fought for it.”

This is not the first time that Pilar Pérez Solano takes part in SEMINCI. She presented her film Murales in the Time of History section in 2010, and returned in 2014 with Las maestras de la República, which won the Goya Award for Best Documentary. Her latest film, La defensa, por la libertad will have its theatrical release on October 25. Solano appeals to young people “who want to learn about the involvement of the legal profession during the Spanish transition to democracy.”