Days of Hope

Espoir: Sierra de Teruel (English title: Days of Hope or Man's Hope) is a 1938-39 Spanish-French black and white war film, directed by Boris Peskine and André Malraux. It was not commercially released until 1945. Malraux wrote the novel L'Espoir, or Man's Hope, published in 1937, which was basis for the film. The director won the 1945 Prix Louis Delluc award. The crash of a Spanish Republican Air Force Potez 540 plane near Valdelinares inspired André Malraux to write the novel. Different years are given for the film's completion. The novel was published in French in 1937 and in English in 1938. The film uses war footage from 1938 and was edited, and other scenes shot, during 1938-1939. It was finished in July 1939 and shown twice in Paris, but the Francoist regime applied pressure to censor it. All known copies were destroyed during World War II, since both Spain and France were ruled by Fascist regimes sympathetic to the forces that shot down the plane. A copy was found and the film was released again in 1945. In Spain, it was banned and was not screened until 1977, after the death of dictator Franco.