The conference was organized by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid with the cooperation of the University of Westminster and the University of Roehampton. Pousa coordinated the panel discussion “Exploring Meeting Points: Audiovisual Relations between Spain and Portugal”, in which three different perspectives were presented to explore meeting points at different times in the recent cinematographic history of the two countries.

She also read the paper “The Franco and Salazar Regimes on Prime Time: Cuéntame cómo pasó and Conta-me como foi”. In September 2001, the Spanish public television channel TVE premièred Cuéntame cómo pasó (Tell Me How It Happened), a fictional series featuring the Alcántara family that describes life in Spain during the final years of Franco's regime. Conceived as popular historical fiction for all audiences, its immediate success led to the consolidation on prime time of a story dramatically defined by the Spanish dictatorial context. Despite its apparent specific historical context, the series also attracted international attention. In April 2007, the Portuguese public television channel RTP premièred the Portuguese adaptation, Conta-me como foi, with the Lopes family as the fictional characters used to recreate the final years of the Salazar regime. In addition to revealing plot and documentary parallelisms and interchange, an analysis of the two shows can steer us towards shared historical moments (such as the handling of the Carnation Revolution) and the search for places in which the stories intersect to help understand how to go about building a memory in audiovisual format for television that has meaning in both Spain and Portugal.

The Association for Contemporary Iberian Studies (ACIS) was founded in 1978 and holds an annual three-day conference to discuss topics such as politics, economics, geography, regional identities, international relations, feminism, media analysis, television, cinema, languages and teaching methods. The conference was attended by academics working in different disciplines who have shared concerns about the development of these areas in Spain and Portugal.

About Laura Pousa

Laura Pousa is a lecturer in the Audiovisual Communication degree programme and has had a chequered career as a scriptwriter for TV series, including more than five years as a writer for Cuéntame cómo pasó, which is broadcast on the Spanish public television channel TVE. Pousa has a PhD in the History of Cinema and has taught subjects on audiovisual programmes at public universities. She has also published academic texts.

Laura Pousa directed the short film Meine Liebe with Ricardo Steinberg. The film was nominated for the 2012 Goya Award for Best Short Film and won the Abbas Kiarostami Film Seminar award.

La memoria televisada: «Cuéntame cómo pasó» is her first book.