La barraca. 1945. Mexico. Directed by Roberto Gavaldón. Screenplay by Libertad Blasco Ibánez, Vicente Blasco Ibánez, Tito Davison, Paulino Masip, Abel Vellilla. With Domingo Soler, Anita Blanch, Amparo Morillo. In Spanish; English subtitles. 110 min.
After serving his apprenticeship as a screenwriter and assistant director, Gavaldón took on his first fully realized project as a director with this adaptation of an 1895 novel by the popular Spanish writer Vicente Blasco Ibánez (Blood and Sand). Though set in Spain, this story of an immigrant family’s struggles to establish their own small farm was close enough to the concerns of Mexico’s tradition of rural melodramas to become an immediate popular and critical success.
In recent years, as part of a collaborative project, the Film Library of the UNAM and the AMACC (Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences) have joined efforts to restore and preserve Mexico´s national film collection. La barraca is one of five films that have been restored so far.
Through the courtesy of Raul de Anda, Cine Visión S.A