In a remote village in Castile, shortly after the Spanish Civil War, six-year-old Ana lives with her older sister Isabel and her beekeeper father. When a travelling cinema shows the film Frankenstein (1931), Ana is deeply impressed by the monster. Not long after, Ana discovers a wounded Republican soldier hiding in an abandoned barn.

With its slow pace, rich symbolism and minimal dialogue, the film depicts the suffocating atmosphere of Franco’s dictatorship. El espíritu de la colmena was a key moment in Spanish cinema in the 1970s and is still considered a masterpiece of evocative storytelling and an allegory about innocence and repression.

At 6 pm, you can attend a free lecture by Prof. Dagmar Vandebosch (KU Leuven): “Horror and the culture of silence in 1970s Spain” (in Dutch).

Register for the lecture