Ocaña

A portrait of the Spanish painter José Pérez Ocaña (1947-83), who used transvestism and performances as his calling card.

MORIR DE DIA writes history from the Transition to the present day through one of its hidden faces: heroin. The stories of characters like Pau Malvido, Mercè Pastor, Pepe Sales or Juanjo Voltes are intertwined to draw the challenges of a chosen life, marked by addiction, from the entry of drugs in Barcelona after Franco's death to the present.

José Pérez Ocaña was one of the symbols of the counter-culture in 1970s' Spain. He was of Andalusian origin but adopted Barcelona as his hometown and Las Ramblas as his stage, where he promenaded in drag. He died in 1983, at only 36 . A painter, famous for his Andalusian virgins (et alia), he was a radical and multifaceted artist during the last years of Franco's dictatorship and during the period of transition towards democracy. An inveterate provocateur, he used transvestitism, surreal performances and extreme fetish acts as forms of artistic resistance, and he was a GLBT activist in the struggle for civil rights. This film features the memories of his family members and friends (Nazario, Jesús Garay and Gérard Courant) and rare historical footage from that period, some never previously released.

This is the story of three homosexuals who decide to spend the summer together at the cottage that the parents of one of them have in Santander. The film shows naturally a series of attitudes then considered shocking and even unnatural.

March 1983. Spanish painter Ocaña held an event for children at the Museum of Fine Arts of Santander, where he introduced them to his exhibition and creative process, answered their questions, and raffled off several artworks.

A sincere portrait, and in first person, of the multifaceted Andalusian artist José Pérez Ocaña.

Legendary drag performer Ocaña in performance with a cardboard Marilyn on the west side of the Berlin Wall.