Julio Peña

Malraux went to Spain in 1936 like thousand of others from all other the world, revolted by France and Great Britain’s refusal to break the “non-intervention” pact and supply arms to the loyalists when both Hitler and Mussolini, in principle also bound by this pact, openly armed Franco’s troops… Malraux began shooting his film in 1938 and finished it the following year when the loyalists’ hope had definitely dwindled. Espoir is a requiem for republican Spain, a committed film without any references whatsoever to ideology. –Le monde, 1970 (extract)