Life Goes On (1965 film)

Set in post-War Madrid, primarily in Maravillas and Malasaña, the plot tracks the fratricidal feud between two sisters, Eloísa and Luisita.[1][2]

Life Goes On is an adaptation of the 1960 novel El mundo sigue by Falangist author and RAE member Juan Antonio de Zunzunegui, which depicts a bleak vision of Madrilenian society, with Zunzunegui being, according to Fernán Gómez, "the writer who has best brought to narrative the enormous political failure of the Spanish post-war period".[6][7] Despite the original author's acquaintance with the Francoist regime, the screenplay was banned by State censorship, and had to wait to a ministerial reshuffle (from Gabriel Arias-Salgado to Manuel Fraga) to be brought back, after some modifications.[2][8] The film was produced by for Ada Films.[9] Shooting took place in 1963.[10] The film was nonetheless granted a negative C rating by the censorship board (on the basis of its purportedly poor aesthetics values), imperiling its commercial distribution.[2][8]

Rather than an outright distribution ban, the film's release was restricted,[11] with the film premiering at Bilbao's Cine Buenos Aires on 10 July 1965 under Nueva Films.[6] The film was re-released on 15 July 2015 by A Contracorriente Films in 15 Spanish cities.[12]

Mirito Torreiro of Fotogramas rated the film 5 out of 5 stars, deeming it to be "one of the most terrifying and merciless moral portraits of Francoist Spain ever made by Spanish cinema".[13]

• List of Spanish films of 1965