Film Review Blog, Article of Dr Ismael Cortés Cine Quinqui and the (Un)Archived Transition: A Critical Reading of Gitano Representation

Emerging in the 1970s and gaining cultural prominence during Spain’s democratic transition, Cine Quinqui has come to function as a form of cultural archive—an aesthetic repertoire through which the tensions, contradictions, and symbolic ruptures of a society in transformation are both captured and constructed. However, like any archive, this one is not ideologically neutral. It demands critical interrogation. What does it include, and what does it exclude? Who are the subjects it chooses to represent, and through what narrative frameworks are these representations structured? Crucially, how do these cinematic narratives intervene in the production of collective memory at a pivotal historical juncture? This article engages these questions from an anti-racist perspective in order to ask: what has been the impact of Cine Quinqui on the representation of the Gitano people during the Spanish Transition?