Un verano en Madrid
2017 · 25m
Directed by Javier Extremera
Genres: documentary, essay film, historical
Tones: contemplative, provocative
In 1887 a Philippine expedition was brought to Spain to be exhibited in Madrid's Retiro Park; through theatre and photography, the film confronts today's visitor with the legacy of colonialism.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Most docs about colonialism genuflect toward moral clarity; Extremera's using theatre and photography to *show* the discomfort of confrontation instead of telling you what to think—that's genuinely weird and it works.
The formal ambition here is what matters: threading documentary, theatrical intervention, and photographic evidence into a single essay creates a genealogy of how Spain reckons with its own visibility in this archive, and that's the kind of conceptual precision that sustains a 25-minute form.
The decision to stage confrontation *through* theatre rather than present the historical record passively is the hinge—it transforms archival material into something that demands active witness from the viewer, and on what appears to be a modest budget, that's the entire film working.