For long decades the Spanish Civil War was something like a black-and-white Robert Capa photo for me. In my mind it was dominated by the (unfortunate) victory of the cruel Franco and his bloodthirsty Fascists over the left-wingers. In fact, this is not much when it comes to knowing the real Spain. My private Spanish adventure began in 1993, with Ernesto Noriega's amateur films. The images of his expressionist films shot in prison and showing Spain in the midst of the Civil War, being torn up by the events captivated my imagination. All of a sudden questions - for which answers are hard to find - came to my mind: what happened to those, whose only aim was to simply survive, or those who were doomed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? What was this destructive fratricide like, filled with suffering, misery, chaos and bloody retributions on both sides, and what was its purpose?
During my explorations through film completely new ideas opened up.
I became more and more engrossed in the Spanish crisis, and found more and more stories and special footage. The challenge was growing ever bigger and took me on the path leading to a private vision, unseen before and moulded by my own personal experiences. The making of El perro negro lasted much longer than I had expected, and even today I don't know what it's like. Perhaps a year or two will have to pass for me to understand what it was exactly I have 'committed'.
Péter Forgács

www.forgacspeter.hu