Interwar · Film · 1995
Land and Freedom
An unemployed Liverpool communist goes to fight fascism in Spain, joins a militia where men and women share the trenches, and learns that his own side is also at war with itself.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 4 places.
Stop 1: Liverpool
After a rally for the Spanish Republic, young David Carr leaves the dole queue behind and sets off to fight in Spain.
Stop 2: Aragon front, Sierra de Alcubierre
Key location
By chance he joins a POUM militia, where men and women fight side by side and argue fiercely about the revolution.
Stop 3: Barcelona
Recovering from a wound, David joins the International Brigades and sees the Republic's factions turn their guns on each other.
Stop 4: Back on the Aragon front
He returns to his old comrades just as a government unit arrives to disarm them.
What really happened
When the military uprising of July 1936 split Spain, some 35,000 foreign volunteers came to defend the Republic, about 2,500 of them from Britain and Ireland. Most joined the Communist-led International Brigades, but some served in the militias of the anarchist CNT or of the POUM, an anti-Stalinist Marxist party, which held the Aragon front around Huesca.
Ken Loach's fictional story follows the path of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. In the Barcelona May Days of 1937 anarchists and the POUM fought government and Communist forces in the streets; the POUM was outlawed in June, its leader Andreu Nin was murdered by Soviet agents, and its militias were dissolved. The long village debate on collectivising the land was largely improvised by non-professional actors.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Land and Freedom
- Directed by
- Ken Loach
- Countries
- United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Italy
- Languages
- English, Spanish
- Released
- 1995
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Western Europe, Mediterranean & Africa
- Themes
- Civil war
- Combat
- Politics
