Fed­erico Gar­cia Lorca (1898–1936) was Spain’s most acclaimed play­wright (Blood Wed­ding, Yerma, The House of Bernardo Alba ) and poet of the 20th cen­tury. He was also openly gay and a vocal oppo­nent of Fran­cisco Franco’s Fas­cist forces dur­ing the Span­ish Civil War. Con­se­quently, he was killed by Fas­cist sol­diers. Last year, direc­tor Paul Mor­ri­son, work­ing from a screen­play by Philippa Goslett, released Lit­tle Ashes, an exquis­ite drama that focuses on Gar­cia Lorca’s rela­tion­ship with the Cata­lan sur­re­al­ist painter Sal­vador Dali. It has just been released in DVD.

The film begins in 1922, as Gar­cia Lorca (Javier Bel­tran) and Luis Bunuel (Matthew McNulty) arrive at a Madrid art school. They are soon joined by the eccen­tri­cally dressed  Dali (Robert Pat­tin­son). Art – cin­ema (Bunuel), lit­er­a­ture (Gar­cia Lorca), or paint­ing (Dali) – con­sumes them. So does their friend­ship. Bunuel is intensely homo­pho­bic, per­haps because he is sub­con­sciously attracted to one or both of his com­pan­ions. One night, see­ing two gay men together, he shouts that mari­cones (“fag­gots”) should be shot.

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