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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Spanish Civil War ended 60 years ago, and yet it is only today that this European nation is reclaiming the 60,000 dead and approximately 100,000 citizens forced into slave labour resulting from the conflict. “Los Caminos de la Memoria“, screened at the Film Festival and International Forum on Human Rights this week, looks at Spain’s reconciliation process and the nature of historical memory.

In the shadow of extreme violence that marked 20th century Europe, the horrors surrounding the war in Spain are just now being exhumed. With the passage of its “historical memory law” in 2007, the Spanish Government has attempted to initiate a national dialogue regarding a history that was closed to discussion.

“The collective memory of Spain is terrible,” notes one historian interviewed by filmmaker José-Luis Peñafuerte. But he is referring to the troubled and gruesome memories that the country is weighted with, not a poor memory.

Peñafuerte suggests that the crimes committed under the Franco regime have not been forgotten so much as rewritten. The stark scenes of exhumations of mass graves are coupled with personal accounts of those whose family members were among the dead, bringing these graveyards to life in a sense.

The discussion has been brought into public schools as part of the government’s “remembrance” campaign. “With whom do you talk about the war,” a teacher asks a roomful of high school students. It is apparent from the initial silence that by and large they don’t, or only in the closest confidence, among family. But Peñafuerte’s repeated classroom scenes point to the key role that youth play in translating and carrying historical memory. They will, after all, be the authors of a new 20th century Spanish history.

The film festival runs to 14 March.