Carlos Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy

Carlos Saura, who died in 2023, became one of Spain’s most important and influential filmmakers from his first features in the 1960s. In the 1980s he turned his attention to making a series of films that engaged with the art of flamenco.

The resulting trilogy, consisting of Blood Wedding (Bodas de Sangre), Carmen and El Amor Brujo, would become a landmark in both his career and Spanish cinema. The Flamenco Trilogy also marked a highly productive collaboration with Antonio Gades, a communist, writer and dancer, whose dance company had already performed earlier versions of El Amor Brujo, Carmen and Bodas de Sangre in the 1970s.