“Bringing out the dead” (working title) - Dramadoc Proposal

A young forensic scientist overcomes the soul-crushing nature of her assignment after realizing the human dimension of the tragedy she’s helping unearth.

“Bringing out the dead” is a socio-political drama exploring the themes of war, peace, reconciliation and historical memory in contemporary Spain. The makers of the film aspire to raise political awareness and to help giving a voice to victims of terror forgotten for over seventy years. Although aiming to interest a wide, international audience, the film would distinctively target three overlapping generations of the Spanish public willing to examine the truth about their history:

17 to 34: Those hardly taught at school, in depth, what happened in Spain in 1936.

34 to 54: Witnesses of Spain’s transition to democracy, but victims of an actively encouraged historical amnesia at a political level.

54+: Direct witnesses of the war or the Franco regime for whom the subject remains taboo.

Overview: This is a story about Spain facing the forgotten legacy of the Civil War, as seen from the perspective of an outsider. The military uprising against the democratically elected government of Spain in 1936 lead to three years of war and four decades of fascist dictatorship under General Franco; From 1939 on, nationalist terror will kill thousands and send many more to labour camps - a silent history of shame that Spain is still trying to come to terms with 70 years on, when a “law of historical memory” has finally been submitted to the country’s Congress for ratification and many people feel its time to seriously debate this important part of their history.

Our story is set in the context of the passing of this law and follows MOIRA, a young forensic student from Scotland, as a reluctant volunteer working for an NGO trying to identify and excavate the thousands of mass graves dotted all over Spain. Lacking official support, at odds with a culture and a language she doesn’t understand and struggling with the overwhelming nature of her assignment, she is about to leave. However, following the emerging friendship with an elderly local, ANA (a silent witness to the execution of her father by fascist forces in 1937 and his burial in an unmarked grave) she will reconsider staying in Spain.

We will thus follow MOIRA’s struggle to unbury and make sense of the terrible events the site hides, with the heated political debate, reactionary politicians and time as antagonists, but with each layer digged up not only shedding light into what happened on that spot 70 years ago, (50 Republican sympathizers - Ana’s father one of them – who, persuaded to turn themselves in to General Franco’s nationalist forces, were executed by the fascists firing squad) but also bringing us a step nearer to closure, repairing the dignity and restituting the memory of the victims, and finally allowing us to lay the ghosts of the Civil War to rest.