- The BIC declaration of this Collection represents the highest level of protection provided by the Spanish Historical Heritage Law 16/1985
- The film and documentary archive of the Film School is, along with that of the No-Do, one of the most complete acquis of public ownership guarded by Filmoteca Española
- Films associated with this archive are available on the new public digital platform for the Spanish audiovisual, PLATFO
The Council of Ministers approved this morning, on the proposal of the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, the Royal Decree granting maximum patrimonial protection to the Collection of Practices of the Institute of Cinematographic Research and Experiences (IIEC) and its successor, the Official School of Cinematography (EOC), as a Property of Cultural Interest (BIC), in the category of movable property.
Urtasun announced the start of the process last October during one of the activities of the program to celebrate Spanish Cinema Day. In the words of the Minister of Culture, “declaring this archive a Property of Cultural Interest, we want to send a very clear message: Spanish cinema is one of the great cultural heritage of our country, a living heritage that drinks from the memory of the School of Cinema and its definitive influence.” Therefore, he said, “from the Government we will continue to protect, disseminate and promote the value of our cinematographic and audiovisual heritage. And we will continue to recover a cultural memory that almost half a century of dictatorship did not manage to erase.”
The film and documentary archive of the Film School is, along with that of the No-Do, one of the most complete acquis of public ownership guarded by Filmoteca Española. The institution began its activity in 1947 as Institute of Cinematographic Research and Experiences (IIEC) at the School of Industrial Engineers of Madrid. In 1962 it was renamed the Official School of Cinematography (EOC), moving to the Dehesa de la Villa until its closure, in 1976. He offered training in eight specialties: direction, production, decoration, interpretation, script, cameras, sound and laboratory technique.
In their classes, filmmakers such as Luis García Berlanga, Juan Antonio Bardem, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Iván Zulueta, Víctor Erice or Basilio Martín Patino, among many others, were trained, and from the hand of Carlos Saura, Mario Camus, Francisco Regueiro or Joaquim Jordà, movements such as the ‘New Spanish cinema’ or the ‘School of Barcelona’ emerged. In the second stage, authors such as Josefina Molina, Cecilia Bartolomé or, later, Pilar Miró were titled in direction and realization in a pioneering way.
During its three decades and 28 academic courses of existence, the Film School was a strong attraction for the country’s cultural elites. Writers, artists, journalists, politicians and architects entered, or attempted to enter, the institution. The artist César Manrique, the magician Juan Tamariz, the politician Alfonso Guerra, the journalists Rosa María Mateo and Paloma Chamorro or the writers Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Adelaida García Morales, Fernando Sánchez Dragó and Clara Janés felt at some point the call of this training center, key in the cultural environment of the second half of the 20th century.
Actresses during the dictatorship
The specific weight of women was also central in the school. Although they were few in number (of the 1,515 students who managed to enter, only 180 were women) and the prevailing machismo put some obstacles in their way (in the first year of 1947 they were only allowed to enrol in the specialties of interpretation and decoration), they managed to become visible and reclaim their place in society through their participation in the projects of two specialties: interpretation and direction.
Esmeralda Adam, Concha Gómez Conde, María Elena Flores, Luisa Muñoz Schneider, Mercedes Juste, Julia Peña or Victoria Vera created, in some cases, female characters that had little or nothing to do with the model of woman that promoted the dictatorial regime of Franco.
Internship Collection
During their time at the Official Film School, the students carried out practical exercises, a material that now forms a rich audiovisual heritage produced by an exceptional generation of Spanish filmmakers. Among the practices, the best known was that of ‘The 100 meters free’. It was an exercise in which they had only a hundred meters of film, three minutes in length, with which the students made every effort to tell a story in which they could, not being intended for the exhibition, overcome censorship and have a space of freedom, alien to the social reality of the moment.
With these materials, in the framework of the celebration of the Spanish Cinema Day on October 6, Filmoteca Española organized the exhibition ‘Los 100 metros libres: Life and miracles of the Film School (1947-1976)’, which was visited at the headquarters of Calle Magdalena, in Madrid, until last month.
The collection that is now protected is formed, among other materials, by the audiovisual content of those practices made by filmmakers such as Luis García Berlanga, Juan Antonio Bardem, Basilio Martín Patino, Carlos Saura, Manuel Summers, Mario Camus, Francisco Regueiro, José Luis Borau, Víctor Erice, Cecilia Bartolomé, Josefina Molina, Pilar Miró, Iván Zulueta, Jaime Chávarri, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Coloolea.
In total, there are about 1,770 titles in different formats, from 16mm in black and white to 35mm with sound and color, which reflect the evolution of technology during these decades and allow us to understand the changes in Spanish cinema.
In addition, it is completed with a rich documentary archive with projects of classes, scripts, student cards, minutes of cloisters, exams, applications for admission or exhibition cards, among other documents.
Materials available on the digital platform PLATFO
Some of the materials from the Official Film School Collection, which have been declared BIC today, can be consulted in the Spanish Oline Film Platform, PLATFOEnlace external, opens in a new window, in open access and free of charge.
PLATFO is the digital platform for the Spanish audiovisual, promoted by the Ministry of Culture, through the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), presented last March at the Cine Doré. It is a project that seeks to improve the visibility and accessibility of Spanish audiovisual content, both for industry professionals and the general public. Its contents and tools include film exhibition modules, but also spaces for project development, the visibility of new talent and the promotion of international distribution.
The platform is in the beta phase, and currently includes a historical section in which funds from Filmoteca Española are already available, including the aforementioned archives of the Film School, as well as other public funds such as the Filmoteca de Catalunya, La Filmoteca Valenciana and the Archive of Sound and Image of Mallorca.