The works of popular Spanish film directors Julio Medem, Juan José Bigas Luna, and José Luis Guerín are newly appraised in relation to their engagement with alternative national and cinematic subjectivities. Their films examine the limitations of the cinematic gaze, as the author shows, highlighting the ways in which these directors make recourse to hybridity, contact, and interface to overcome the binary power dynamic previously thought to be a feature of cinema. This book explores their status as solely “Spanish” filmmakers while focusing on their diverse and immensely creative output, offering new readings that engage with current debates in visual culture surrounding psychoanalytic theory, phenomenology, and theories of documentary practice.

Abigail Loxham earned her BA and PhD from the University of Cambridge and has previously worked at the University of Hull. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at University of Queensland. She has published articles on Spanish cinema, documentary, and memory.

“This is an excellent study of the work of three important 'Spanish' directors that effectively highlights the range of theoretical tools available to us in our reading of film and the difficulty of defining a body of national cinema. The chapters on each director are impressive…This is fascinating, original, work.”  ·  Jo Evans, University College London