King Alfonso XIII of Spain

Romm pulls out all the stops in its selection of documentary material to draw the viewer not only into absolute horror about fascism and nazism in the 1920s–1940s Europe, but also to a firm conviction that nothing of the sort should be allowed to happen again anywhere in the world.

An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura, in 1922.

A short film documenting the wedding ceremony of Princess Ena to King Alfonso XIII of Spain. Showing the royal carriage, the royal procession through the streets to the palace steps, etc.

Nicole Védrès' chronicle of Paris from 1900 to 1914 is brought to life through the use of original material, all authentic, secured from more then 700 films belonging to public and private collections. A few of the celebrities of the time shown are Enrico Caruso, Sarah Bernhardt, and Maurice Chevalier.

Spain, April 14, 1931. The Second Republic is born. From the beginning, the writer Miguel de Unamuno is considered one of the ethical pillars of the new regime. Five years later, on December 31, 1936, a few months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Unamuno dies at his home in Salamanca, capital of the rebel side, led by General Francisco Franco, and main center of dissemination of its propaganda apparatus.

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short highlights the film preservation efforts of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Several scenes from early newsreels are shown.

The life story of Vicente Miguel Carceller (1890-1940), a Spanish editor committed to freedom who, through his weekly magazine La Traca, connected with the common people while maintaining a dangerous pulse with the powerful.

North Sudan, summer 1923. King Alfonso XIII of Spain captures an enormous African elephant, an apparently irrelevant act that, however, will be paramount to understand the Spain of 20th century; an animal from far lands that will become a symbol of the Second Spanish Republic, the communist movement and many other things; a royal hunting that marks the beginning of a bizarre story of jealousy, passion, political intrigues and taxidermy.

"The Confessor", attributed to the pioneering Baños brothers, is a curious and not very well known pornographic silent film that constitutes a true exception in the treatment of religion in Spanish silent cinema. In this way, the pornographic attraction of "The Confessor" is built through the perversion of the priestly vow of celibacy and the sacrament of penance. This film can be considered as another chapter in the cultural tradition of criticizing the vices of the clergy, and as a consequence of the environment and the new leisure culture that took place in the Europe of the so-called "frivolous twenties".