Description
Set against the brooding Sierra Nevada peaks, the Alhambra is Granada’s love letter to Moorish culture.
The creation of this majestic palace is captured in Los Constructores de la Alhambra (The Builders of the Alhambra), a dazzling feature-length documentary.
The story revolves around Yusuf I, the Sultan of Granada. After realising that his besieged kingdom is doomed to disappear he embarks on constructing a building that will rival the heavens – the Alhambra.
Directed by Isabel Fernández, this dazzling film uses historical reconstructions to chart the conception and construction of this historic building, which tell us the story of 14th century Granada and the swan song of Islamic Europe.
Join us for a screening of the film, followed by a Q&A with Isabel, chaired by Mariam Rosser-Owen, as she discusses her film and why she wanted to make it, as well as the story of this iconic building. Spanish with English subtitles.
About the Speaker
Isabel Fernández
Isabel Fernández is an independent film director, writer, and producer, born in Barcelona. Her documentaries have been broadcasted on NTR, VRT, SVT, UR, YLE, RAI, RTP, TG4, ORF, RTVE, TV3, and Canal Sur.
Her film His Father’s Son, 2010, received a Special Mention from the Jury at Prix Europa. Her first feature documentary Long Distance Runners, 2014, was awarded Best Direction at the Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the Europe-Orient du Film Documentaire in Asilah.
Her short documentary The Neighbor, 2015, won the prize for Public Liberties and Human Rights at the Aljazeera Documentary Festival. From her production company Al Pati, she focuses on producing films that explore the borders of documentary and fiction and new narratives to foster social change.
Her feature film, The builders of Alhambra, 2022, is a blue chip coproduction with El de las Dos Vidas, Al Pati Produccions, and Polar Star Films with the support of MEDIA Creative Europe, the Andalusian Film Fund and the Catalan Film Fund, and the participation of RTVE and Canal Sur (Spain), ZDF/ARTE (Germany and France), ORF (Austria) and Aljazeera Documentary Channel. It premiered in Official Competition at SEMINCI, the Valladolid International Film Festival, and FIFA, the Montreal International Festival of Films on Art. It was presented at the Biennale Of Islamic Art 2022 in Jeddah.
The builders of Alhambra was released in cinemas in Spain on November 2022, entering the list of the top ten most-watched films during its opening weeks.
About the Chair
Mariam Rosser-Owen
Dr Mariam Rosser-Owen is Curator Middle East at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where she has worked since 2002. She specialises in the arts of the medieval Mediterranean, especially Islamic Iberia and North Africa. She is the author of Islamic Arts from Spain, and Articulating the Ḥijāba: Cultural Patronage and Political Legitimacy in al-Andalus – The ʿĀmirid Regency, c.970-1010 AD (Leiden: Brill, Handbook of Oriental Studies, 2021). From 2010-2012, she was a project team member of REMAI, the Red Europea de Museos de Arte Islámico / European Network of Museums of Islamic Art, which was a collaborative research project between the Alhambra, V&A and Musée du Louvre. Most recently, she has been the lead investigator for Crafting Medieval Spain, a project funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and Trinity College, Dublin, focusing on the four monumental wooden ceilings from the Torrijos Palace, near Toledo in Spain.
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