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Last Friday, 15 September, saw the first screening of 'Salvador', a film which remembers the life and death of Salvador Puig Antich, a young anarchist executed in 1974, at the end of Franco's ferocious dictatorship.

The feature film, which includes sections in Catalan and Spanish in more-or-less equal parts, is produced by MEDIAPRO and directed Manuel Huerga. It is based on the book entitled 'Compte Enrere' ('Countdown'), by the Catalan journalist Francesc Escribano. The German-Catalan actor Daniel Brühl plays Puig Antich, heading a star-studded cast that includes names such as Íngrid Rubio, Tristán Ulloa, Leonardo Sbaraglia, and Leonor Watling.

Manuel Huerga has said that he would like the film to help overturn the sentence handed down to Puig Antich, something which his family has been demanding. Puig Antich was sentenced after having been charged with killing a police officer. Inconsistencies in trial and the crossfire which followed Puig Antich's arrest, add weight to arguments to reopen the case.

But 'Salvador' also asks the question whether society at the time and, more specifically, opposition to the dictatorship, did enough to avoid the execution of the young Catalan anarchist.