Olas de Recuerdo is a 2024 documentary that makes its San Francisco premiere at the Roxie on Aug. 25 during an evening of short documentaries by women filmmakers. The film combines black-and-white reenactments shot on the Spanish coast with Spanish- and Galician-language interviews of extended family to create an oral history. The filmmaker's great-uncles joined a fishermen's labor union during Spain's democratic transition, but Franco's military coup led to a 40-year dictatorship marked by violence. Striking unionized fishermen were attacked, forcing relatives into hiding and eventual exile. The film also draws parallels to modern rightwing resurgences and contemporary protests.
When Naomi Garcia Pasmanick was growing up in San Francisco, she'd often hear her grandmother Aurita make offhanded comments about her disdain for fascists and respect for working class people. As Garcia Pasmanick grew older and got to know her extended family in the small fishing town of Moaña in Galicia, Spain, she began to learn more about her ancestors' legacy - and of a labor movement that was crushed by repression, violence and persecution during Francisco Franco's regime.
As Spain's monarchy toppled, the filmmaker's great-uncles joined a fishermen's labor union that aligned itself with the new democratic government. Through emotional Spanish- and Galician-language interviews with Garcia Pasmanick's extended family, the film offers an oral history of how Franco's military coup launched a dictatorship that lasted 40 years. Scabs waged violence against the unionized fishermen during a strike, forcing Garcia Pasmanick's ancestors to go into hiding and eventually flee the country altogether.
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