Spanish Speaking World

IberoDocs, Ibero-American Documentary Film Festival Scotland, is back for its 4thedition in Edinburgh to celebrate rich and thought provoking stories from Ibero-America. The event, which will run from the 10th to the 14th of May in the Filmhouse. 14 of the documentaries to be...

Hollywood didn’t like Dennis Hopper‘s third work, ‘The Last Movie’. In fact, he was banned from directing for ten years after its presentation. Its surrealistic touches, its unconventional narrative and its experimental nature fitted neither the canons of Universal Pictures nor...

The fourth edition of IberoDocs, the first showcase for Ibero-American culture in Scotland, focused on documentary films by Spanish, Portuguese and Latin-American filmmakers, is back on May 10-14. The new edition of the festival, in collaboration with Scottish Documentary...

On the 4th of February 2017, the second anti-repression forum took place in Edinburgh. This event was organised by a collective, formed by people pushed into economic exile from the Spanish state. The objective of the group ‘Edinburgh in protest’ is to address the...

In this article Konrad Lawson, School of History, University of St Andrews and Nikolaos Papadogiannis, School of History and Archaeology of Bangor University, outline their participatory research on Greek and Spanish migration in Scotland. 

Jose Luis Carretero author of  Your house is not yours, it belongs to the bank [Tu casa no es tuya, es del banco] talked about the housing right movement in Spain last July in Edinburgh.

Matias Viotti interviews Enrique Reynoso housing rights activist in Mexico, on the radio programme ‘Entre Mates’  (published and edited by Colectivo Burbuja) .

Be Global Translations is a company specialising in legal and economic translations founded by Virginia Pastor (Madrid, 1990), a Spanish enterpreneur based in Edinburgh. This startup aims to help in the internationalisation of local and national Spanish talent. The career choice...

After nearly one year without a Government, Spain brought Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) back into power as a minority government on the 29th of October 2016. This avoided a third general election in December (the first one was held on 20th of December 2015). Many Spanish...

The Scottish charity People Know How (PKH) is coordinating a participative project in Edinburgh to unearth the historic bonds between Scotland and Spain by interviewing Scottish holidaymakers who visited Spain from the 1950s to the 1980s. PKH runs other projects to help people...

The Spanish community in the United Kingdom has noticeably been on the rise, it is has become progressively conventional to hear the Spanish language being spoken whilst walking the streets of major cities. Not only participates of local events these communities are increasingly...

IberoDocs, the Ibero-American Documentary Film Festival in Scotland, is back from the 4th to the 8th of May at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh. Its third outing will be focused on showing the first works of emerging directors who have taken risks using unexpected formats and/or...

During the general strike on 14th November 2012 in Barcelona, Ester Quintana was returning home from a protest when a rubber bullet, shoot by the mossos (Catalan police) impacted in her face. As a consequence, she lost her left eye. On April 11th 2016, nearly four years later,...

A new anti-repression conference organised by Edinburgh in Protest, in collaboration with Spanish Workers in Edinburgh, is taking place on the 19th and 20th of March in Edinburgh. The weekend’s programme includes documentaries, talks, debates and concerts. The aim of this event...

El minero berciano Sócrates Fernández, trabajador de La Hullera Vasco Leonesa, actualmente en liquidación, visitó Edimburgo para hablar sobre el conflicto minero en España y las décadas de lucha de un colectivo, que en la actualidad batalla contra su desaparición y para que el...

Cosmopolita Scotland joins the Mundo Spanish business network, founded by journalist Beatriz Revilla, to jointly publicise Spanish entrepreneurs and businesses in journalistic reports published simultaneously on both platforms.

In this interview for ‘Cosmopolita Scotland’ Jordi Albacete speaks to Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes co-author of the bilingual anthology of poetry (English and Spanish) ‘Wonder-Makers Navigators of the Thames’. Latin American and Spanish women, immigrants and in exile,...

How could the pension funds of Scottish parliamentarians contribute to the displacement of poor farmers in Colombian Guajira? Jordi Albacete interviews one of the affected Guajiros, Samuel Arregocés, and the Bogota activist Danilo Urrea who are in Scotland as part of their tour...

Sue  Cormack reviews the plot of the acclaimed novel and film The Prime of  Miss Jean Brodie first published in 1961 and adapted to cinema in 1969, which portrays some connections between Scotland and Spain in the 1930s during the Spanish civil war.

Pilar Lima is the first elected official who is deaf in Spain. She has a very extensive professional and activist career. She has been a volunteer at the Vicente Ferrer Foundation in Anantapur and also a professor in several public and private institutions that promote the...

Natàlia Corrales is a sign language interpreter living in Barcelona. During her ten years of work, she has experienced first-hand what it is like to live in a world full of communication barriers. Many of these barriers are misunderstood or easily dismissed. For the last three...

Galería Gaudí, from Madrid, will take part in Edinburgh Art Fair (13-15 November at Edinburgh Corner Exchange) for the second year running to bring Spanish contemporary artist closer to the Scottish public.

After the exit of the first edition, the Festival aims to establish itself as a reference of Spanish culture in Scotland

(Published in CEXT Spanish Citizenship Abroad) People Know How has set up the event #EdiSpanish in order to boost the integration of the Spanish speaking community in the Scottish capital. It will take place on Saturday, June 13th at Stockbridge Church from 16:00 to 20:15. Noelia...

Emigration is one of the top issues in Spain due to its financial turmoil(1), which has forced many young highly qualified people to leave the country. The often-called “diaspora” has unveiled the deep instability of the job market, traditionally regulated in favour...

Poland became part of the European Union in 2004 when the country was still economically poor. Many Poles came to Scotland looking for new opportunities. The impact  of this wave of immigration has been the subject of a debate focused on cultural integration of Poles within...

Santiago Niño Becerra is a professor of economics at Ramon Llul University in Barcelona. He has written many articles, essays and books about the financial crisis in Spain. In fact, he predicted the disaster in 2006 when he announced “high-debts will cause a crash in 2010...

Scotland is one of the most popular destinations for Spanish emigrants. Although the media usually points to the 2008 economic crisis as the main cause of this migratory phenomenon, the reality is that lots of Spaniards were already arriving in Scotland before that date.

The English language is still the main barrier for many Spanish-speaking residents in Scotland. Lack of language management makes it hard for these individuals to integrate into social and professional networks. Although there is not a single cause for this, experts agree that...

As every month Cinemaattic will be back in the Summerhall to present a programme of independent short films distributed by OFF ECAM. This project was born in ECAM, one of the most prestigious Spanish film schools.

Cinemaattic is back to the CCA in Glasgow to offer you a programme of entertaining and stimulating Spanish and Latin-American short films. 

No one questions chocolate’s unbeatable power of seduction. However, many condemn the lack of environmental and social justice surrounding this industry. Basilio Almonte took part in the Fair Trade Fortnight in Scotland to promote the fair trade cocoa cooperative (CONACADO) in...

The platform for Spanish, Iberian and Latin-American cinema in Scotland (CinemaAttic) will be back in Summerhall (Edinburgh) this Friday at 8pm. The programme will explore the relationship between reality and fiction throughout 5 short movies; two of them, Safari and A Whole...

The Spanish artist Ismael Teira exhibits a maquette of the enigmatic Argyle House building in Edinburgh city centre. The exposition will be opened until the 28th of March at the Forest Centre Plus.  Acción  Cultural Española  works in this project. The entrance is free. You can...

The Spanish community residing in Edinburgh, which has been increasing in the last years, constitutes an important part of the population of the city. Unemployment has continued to rise in Spain since the credit crunch and the ensuing economic crisis. During the crisis, the UK...

Ho Wai Clarence Leong, a student from Hong Kong living in Scotland, compares the referenda and public consultation in Hong Kong, Scotland and Catalonia, held during the last months of the recent year. 

In this article we look at the news of the arrest warrant for 19 ex officials from the Spanish dictatorship issued by Argentine Interpol on October 31.  This report will review some key aspects on how international law has regulated the recent Spanish historical memory.  

The recent referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom and the popular consultation on the sovereignty of Catalonia in Spain, are two historical milestones for these two Stateless Nations. In this article we contextualize the emergence of these processes and what...

Tango was born to seduce, but in the 21st century it has come to mean much more than that. Scotland is showing the world how the symbiosis between a contemporary chamber orchestra and tango singers reformulate the genre from its essence. This is to the delight of music lovers,...

Argentinean Interpol has asked Spain to arrest and extradite 19 former officials accused of abuses during the military rule of General Franco (1939-75). One of these Franco-era officials is the father in law of Justice ex-minister, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón. Matías Viotti...

2,345,144 people voted for Catalan independence in a non biding referendum last 9th of November. Spanish government describes Catalan vote as “sterile and useless”. Over 80% of voters chose independence. Jordi Albacete More than two million citizens in Catalonia, and...

43 students have disappeared in Mexico since 26th September.   In addition 6 civilians have been found dead and many mass graves have been found within a month. The atrocities have resulted in a huge amount of outrage, not just in Mexico but all over the world.