An engaging portrait of a man in love with the cinema. A brilliant cult film persecuted by censorship.

Carlos is a young man who has been fixated on cinema since childhood. Now married to Ana, he turns his hobby into a living as a photojournalist. But when the Spanish Civil War begins, something happens that changes him forever.

“Life in Shadows” is a portrait of a man born in the shadow of the Lumière brothers and revived by Alfred Hitchcock. A love letter to cinema, a monument to film overflowing with creativity, standing as an authentic testimony of its time and reflecting the country’s social and political evolution. A film made in the margins of the industry, massacred by censorship, cut and re-edited several times, which made it a cult classic.

A forgotten film that regained its glory in the 80s, with a re-release rescuing a few unique 16mm copies. In 2008, the restored copy was screened at the Venice Film Festival. Its catalogue stated: “an exception in the Spanish film scene. It does not follow the official precepts of national cinema of the 40s and is a product of passion, not commercial interest.”

Javier Garcia Puerto