The story of the black market in the Campo de Gibraltar

The word 'estraperlo' is familiar to every Spanish-speaker over 40 in the Campo de Gibraltar. The dictionary defines it as 'black market' but the University of Life would define it as subsistence. Prospero's good friend, documentary film director Juanma Díaz Lima, has come up with another whammy entitled '...De Estraperlo' (his last venture into the area, 'Entre tientos y habaneras'  documented Jimena's International Music Festival). As he puts it in a press release announcing the trailer on YouTube (below) and the film's premiere in Madrid on February 25:>

'...De Estraperlo' uncovers the fact that History is a lot more than a succession of big names. The black market, a form of clandestine trade typical of hard times, brings forth the life of  ordinary people, in this case those trying to survive the hardships of post-Civil War Spain. Director Juan Manuel Díaz Lima, author of such short films as Veo Veo (award for audiovisual creation from Radio Televisión de Andalucía) and Desenfocados ('Unfocused', awarded the El Mirón Prize at the IV Calle 54 Short Film Marathon), brings us the result of five years of research into the black market in Algeciras, where its closeness to Gibraltar -an oasis of abundance a stone's throw from the miseries of Franco's Spain. Estraperlo became almost a way of life in the area. Journalists, historians, politicians and, above all, ordinary people tell their stories. They will never become History, and never has the concept of 'intrahistory' espoused by writer and thinker Miguel de Unamuno offered better reflections in images.

One of those ordinary people appearing in the documentary and the trailer says, "penicillin first appeared in Spain from Gibraltar," which gives us an idea of the importance of the history (small 'c') of the black market in the CdeG.