Potential History of Francesc Tosquelles, Catalonia and Fear (2022)

Overview

Halfway between documentary, speculative fiction and experimental cinema, POTENTIAL HISTORY starts from the fact that there is a past that is not reflected in official histories. A critical reading of archives is thus required to tell the stories that are not documented. The film appropriates a concept developed by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay to narrate the ‘potential history’ of Francesc Tosquelles, a Catalan psychiatrist and refugee from the Spanish civil war who ran a provincial hospital in France during the Nazi occupation. Revolutionary politics from the 1930s opened the way to revolutionizing therapy.