Patricia Roda vindicates the work of photojournalism in Kautela, photographer

The DOC. España section premiered the feature film Kautela, photographer and the short film Réquiem Georg at the same session on Sunday 23 October.

At the presentation, Patricia Roda, director of the feature film about the life of the photojournalist Francisco Martínez Gascón, started with the discovery by his granddaughter Cristina of a forgotten suitcase with unpublished archives on the Civil War and the capture of Barcelona.

The director commented to the audience, in the final colloquium, on the importance of the role played by the photojournalist in the history of humanity, and above all in war journalism. “I’m not saying that the side my grandfather was on was the right one, but his work today allows us to see the whole picture,” said Roda.

Raúl Riebenbauer, producer of Réquiem Georg, explained that for more than ten years he set out to follow the archived life of a beggar executed during Franco’s dictatorship. The story of Georg Welzel came into Raúl’s life when he was only 35 years old. After hiding hours of recordings in his mother’s boot, he finally decided to tell and screen the film. Requiem Georg is the story of a man whose “death was used by Franco’s dictatorship to justify his political execution”, explained the director, “hence its relevance and merit”.