Exploring the Matrixial Borderspace with Spanish Women Documentary Directors

Framed by an overview of documentary film history in the Spanish-speaking world and the emergence of women filmmakers within that tradition, this lecture examines documentaries directed by women in twenty-first-century Spain. A central focus is the work of Almudena Carracedo, whose films directed independently (Made in L.A.) and in tandem with Robert Bahar (El silencio de otros and No estás sola/You Are Not Alone: Fighting the Wolf Pack) bear witness to the exploitation of Latina garment workers, neglected victims of the Spanish Civil War and of Francoist authoritarianism, and the struggles of survivors of sexual assault. Bracha Ettinger’s concepts of the matrixial gaze (an alternative in post-Freudian discourse to the objectifying phallic gaze) and of wit(h)nessing (an intense form of empathy for which both late intrauterine development and future maternal potential prepare the artist or creator) illuminate the facility with which women documentary directors enter what Ettinger calls the borderspace, a zone of immersive co-emergence with their subjects. Additional works by Spanish women documentary makers in the first quarter of the current century address sexism in the workplace, human trafficking, femicide, gendered celebrity culture, women left out of the literary canon, and economic exile. Together, these works invite viewers into a collaborative space of dialogue among filmmakers, subjects, and the broader cultural context. Are there distinctive approaches to documentary practice associated with women filmmakers that remain available to creators of all genders?