Ángel Sala will "profane" the taboos of Spanish fantastic genre films in a book to be published in 2021

PROFANANDO EL SUEÑO DE LOS MUERTOS (PROFANING THE SLEEP OF THE DEAD) by Ángel Sala is one of the publications that Editorial Hermenaute is preparing for 2021.

This new revised and updated edition of the essay published in 2010 by Scifiworld, proposes to liberate Spanish genre films from the exploitation label they have been reduced to for decades and open up their analysis to more auteur-oriented genre products. 

A research study that covers from the pioneering cinema of Segundo de Chomón, the work of classics such as Paul Naschy, Jesús Franco or Narciso Ibañez Serrador, to auteurs who, a priori, are not related to genre, such as Rafael Gil, Carlos Serrano de Osma, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Carlos Saura or Manuel Gutierrez Aragón. This book also includes the decisive influence of television in the evolution of fantastic films in Spain, as well as the work of auteurs who, even though they mainly developed their careers outside of Spain, can be considered basic and even foundational in the evolution of the genre, such as Luis Buñuel or José Ramón Larraz.

Cover illustration by Miki Edge.

Ángel Sala (Barcelona, 1964). Writer, screenwriter and film critic, especially well-known as the director of the Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia. He has written different and wide-ranging essays on film.

Approximate publication date: May 2021.