The entire research and writing process of this book lasted six long years, from 2008 to 2014, during which I met many people who have helped me in many ways. The starting point of this story was my arrival at the English Department of the Universidad de Zaragoza with a FPI grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Research (BES-2008-007953) associated to the Research Project HUM2007-61183. There I had the pleasure of meeting the members of the research group ‘Cinema, Culture and Society’, as well as other postgraduate students, who soon became friends and colleagues. I would like to thank all of them for supporting me during these years, especially my supervisor Luis Miguel García Mainar, who has been an excellent editor of all the texts that make up this book.
There have been many other people who have somehow contributed to bringing this research to a successful conclusion: some have invited me to give lectures, take part in conferences or publish in academic books and journals; while others have given me access to archives, libraries and schools, have read and corrected my papers, have lent me films, or simply have given me ideas. For all these reasons, I would like to mention Sorin Alexandrescu, Marta Álvarez, Ana Maria Amaro, Thom Andersen, Steve Anker, Elvira Antón Carrillo, Tiago Baptista, María Soliña Barreiro, Charlotte Brunsdon, Josep María Caparrós Lera, Josetxo Cerdán Los Arcos, Michael Chanan, Efrén Cuevas, Paulo Cunha, Eva Darias Beautell, Max Doppelbauer, Susana Duarte, Justin D. Edwards, Dino Everett, Angelica Fenner, Georges Fournier, Paulo Granja, Hanna Hatzmann, Ángel Luis Hueso, Óscar Iglesias Álvarez, Alisa Lebow, Margarita Ledo Andión, Delphine Letort, Asunción López-Varela, Laura Montero Plata, Mariana Net, Martin Pawley, Laura Rascaroli, Michael Renov, Daniel Ribas, Jesús Rodrigo, Filipa Rosário, Inmaculada Sánchez Alarcón, José Manuel Sande, Isabel Santaolalla, Kathrin Sartingen, Ana Soares, Juan A. Suárez, Luis Urbano and Susana Viegas.
I would also like to express my infinite gratitude to all my comrades in the Cineclube de Compostela, the Tertulia Perdiguer and the film magazine A Cuarta Parede, because our endless debates on cinema have probably been the most important part of my film education. I am tempted to mention many other people, basically all my friends in Galicia, Zaragoza, Barcelona, Portugal, Colombia, London and Los Angeles for having accompanied me during different periods of my life and remained friends despite my absence in recent times, but that list would certainly be too long for this section. Let me then finish with a few words of thanks to my parents, who have taken me to the movies since I was a child, and are still now funding my life as an unemployed researcher; to my sister Cristina, who has taught me almost everything I know; and to my partner Teresa, who has had to endure too many cold nights alone in bed while I was writing this book.