Ispanija

In 1964, Leyda’s book “Films Beget Films – A Study of the Compilation Film” was published, a systematic exploration of films that exclusively or predominantly consist of pre-existing film material. For Leyda, Esfir Shub’s ISPANIJA and Henri Storck’s HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT INCONNU were milestones of the genre for demonstrating the political force that intelligently edited archive material can reveal. ISPANIJA is a spirited look back at the Spanish Civil War that the Republican side had just lost. Storcks’s montage film HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT INCONNU was made seven years earlier, conjuring up a mood of the greatest possible danger: with unflinching visual sequences, he recalls the horror of the First World War, unmasks the arms race that was firing on all cylinders at the time as a form of investment in the war about to come and thus also possess an alarming topicality in the here and now. 

Histoire du soldat inconnu Henri Storck Belgium 1932 16 mm French OV/German ST 10 min.

The print of ISPANIJA comes from the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT INCONNU from the Arsenal Archive.