¿Documental o ficción? Un periodista investiga sobre la prostitución en EspañaChicas de Club (1970)

Abstract

In the following paper we look into the cinematic use of an investigative journalist as a character to bring authenticity to t he structure of a (fiction) movie. Jordi Grau (1930) daringly reflects on what pushes some women into prostitution in the euphemistically named "clubs de alterne" (meeting clubs). It is the 1970s and in Spain, under Franco's authoritarian dictatorship - and therefore in a situation of cinematographic censorship - the issue of prostitution is forbidden as a subject for cinema. The director Jordi Grau, in collaboration with the scriptwriter Mario Camus, sets a risky narrative and visual game in motion in which the journalist is the connecting thread between the interviews carried out with people in the street and the girls in the club, who participate as actresses in the fictional retelling of their very own lives. Thus the film becomes a hybrid of reality and fiction that captivates the viewer.