Background information
As a young man, the great Spanish director Carlos SAURA didn't quite know what to become: motorcycle racer, flamenco dancer or photographer? 60 years, 40 feature films and countless film prizes later, the passion for photography runs as a leitmotif through Carlos SAURA's biography. His study in Madrid resembles a camera museum, full to the brim with rarities, self-made cameras and a cupboard full of Leicas. Photo boxes are piling up everywhere, the walls and hard drives are full to the brim with pictures that he took in his private environment, while traveling and while filming. The publishers Gerhard Steidl and Hans Meinke set out to publish the largely unknown photographic work by Carlos Saura in book form. You will discover an early phase of work that lets the Spain of the 50s appear in a new light: impressive black and white images show landscapes, villages and the people of this time beyond Franco propaganda. Together with Carlos Saura, who insists on being a photo amateur, they conceive an artful book, meet again and again at the Steidl publishing house in Göttingen, sort, discard, write, print.
Content
The humorous documentary film shows how the photo book 'Vanished Spain' is created and watches 'real characters' - filmmaker Carlos SAURA & publisher Gerhard Steidl - at work.