Family music documentary film as a tool for a feminist memory. Analysis of Conxita Badia no existeix

Abstract

Although the documentary genre has proliferated approaches to memory practices from the family sphere, narrated in the first person and from a gender perspective, it is not usual for music documentaries. Conxita Badia no existeix (Eulàlia Domènech, 2012) is one of these rare examples. In it, the director pays tribute to and vindicates the musical legacy of her great-grandmother, the lyric singer Conxita Badia, who, despite her talent and the international fame she achieved in the first half of the 20th century, was made invisible by official history and is, today, unknown to the general public. This article focuses on the narrative and film strategies used by Domènech in this work, which seek to privilege listening to the artist's voice. On the other hand, through the female family protagonist relationship established throughout the film, the article emphasises the importance of rescuing from oblivion and vindicating past female figures, understanding memory as a political exercise of rewriting a patriarchal history, contributing its grain of sand in the construction of a feminist genealogy, in this case, in the field of classical music.