We start a three episode series discussing movies that depict the Spanish Civil War and Francisco Franco's fascist rule in Spain. First up is Guillermo Del Toro's 2006 fantasy Pan's Labyrinth. Discussion includes:

• Recent watches: Wolf Man (2025), Heart Eyes (2025), Presence (2024), Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), Let's Start a Cult (2024), and The Tarnished Angels (1957);
• The brave people in federal government resisting Trump and Elon's fascist takeover;
• The beauty of resistance and fantasy as an escape from political upheaval;
• And how many characters in Mel Gibson's new film FLIGHT RISK talk about pooping themselves?

Follow us online!

• Follow us on Twitter at @RedRoseFilmPod
• Follow our Facebook Group
• Follow Hal on Twitter at @shestructured
• Follow Craig on Twitter at @KegFreighter
• Follow Hal's Letterboxd
• Follow Craig's Letterboxd

SOURCES

• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/26/altgov-elon-musk-doge-federal-workers

• Mercedes Penalba-Sotorrio's chapter "Of Fascist Heroes and Martyrs: Death and Violence in the Falanage Espanola" in the 2021 book The Crucible of Francoism: Combat, Violence, and Ideology in the Spanish Civil War

• Michael Parenti's 1997 book Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism & the Overthrow of Communism and his 2007 essay "Fascism the Real Story"

• Hugh Thomas' 1961 book The Spanish Civil War

• The University of Warwick's illustrated timeline of the Spanish Civil War: https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/scw/timeline/