Juan Ramírez de Lucas’s previously unseen diaries, belonging to Federico García Lorca’s final known partner, will feature in a new documentary, EL PAÍS reports. The documents chronicle the couple’s private relationship and their plan to leave Spain for Mexico. The film, La voz quebrada, runs 88 minutes and is directed by Manuel Menchón.
Ramírez de Lucas was a 19-year-old student from Albacete who hoped to become an actor. He and Lorca intended to begin a new life abroad, but they never made the journey: Ramírez de Lucas was legally a minor and needed his father’s permission to leave the country. His conservative physician father refused to authorize the trip. The separation and failed plan came shortly before Lorca was killed in Granada in August 1936.
Written decades after Lorca’s death, Ramírez de Lucas’s memoir, titled Breve historia de un amor, records the personal and social pressures that kept the relationship secret. Ramírez de Lucas, who died in 2010, kept the account and related papers hidden in a wooden box during his lifetime. The archive includes diaries, photographs and correspondence, as well as drawings by Lorca and a lyrical romance. In his notes, Ramírez de Lucas refers to Lorca as “the POET” and explains why he wanted his memories preserved.
The diary recalls a farewell at Madrid’s Atocha station on July 13, 1936, when Lorca left for Granada. Ramírez de Lucas’s account says Lorca reassured him that “two months” would pass quickly, suggesting they expected the separation to be temporary. A letter dated July 18, described as Lorca’s last known letter to Ramírez de Lucas, expressed affection, promised a future and asked him for patience. Other accounts refer to a related letter dated July 16, placing the correspondence among the pair’s final exchanges as Spain entered civil war.
Interest in the couple’s story intensified after EL PAÍS published Lorca’s final letter to Ramírez de Lucas in 2012. The publication led the Spanish Congress’s Culture Commission to recognize the archive’s historical significance and propose digitizing it for researchers. The initiative stalled. After Ramírez de Lucas’s death, his family allowed the material to be used for publication and filmmaking. It now underpins Menchón’s documentary and the Seix Barral book Recuerdos. Breve historia de un amor, edited by Hispanist Christopher Maurer and journalist Víctor Fernández.
Menchón began investigating Ramírez de Lucas’s life while preparing his documentary on Lorca. After contacting the family and gaining access to additional unpublished material, the director and his team spent five years comparing the documents with historical research. Menchón has described the film’s approach as documentary rather than fictionalized: its spoken passages draw on texts left by the protagonists and other historical figures. The project was presented at the San Sebastián film festival.
The diary’s cover, first published by EL PAÍS in 2012, features Lorca’s name surrounded by red tears symbolizing blood. Menchón has said that even people close to Ramírez de Lucas, including colleagues, did not know about his connection to Lorca. He kept the relationship private throughout his life, including from later partners. The newly public account offers a personal record of their relationship and the social constraints that shaped it.
During research for the film, Menchón’s team also uncovered rare footage of Lorca from 1932 in the Menéndez Pidal family archives. The restored images, showing Lorca with the theater group La Barraca, will be included in the documentary. The soundtrack features “Canción de invierno,” a piece Lorca composed as a teenager. Actor Álvaro Morte voices the poet and his generation, who were forced to conceal their identities.
La voz quebrada is scheduled for release in autumn. The film follows Menchón’s earlier work, Palabras para un fin del mundo, which questioned the official account of Miguel de Unamuno’s death and examined events at the University of Salamanca on October 12, 1936. The new documentary brings Ramírez de Lucas’s private archive into public view, using archival footage alongside letters and manuscripts, with photographs also included.
Federico García Lorca remains one of Spain’s most influential poets and playwrights, and his works are studied worldwide. His killing during the early days of the Civil War became a symbol of the period’s violence and intolerance. The publication of Ramírez de Lucas’s account adds a personal dimension to Lorca’s legacy, illuminating their relationship and the climate of fear in which it was kept secret. Nearly ninety years later, Lorca’s burial site remains undiscovered.
