At the end of the 19th century in Europe, images which, until then, had been static, came to life thanks to the invention of cinematography. Catalonia did not remain on the sidelines. In 1897, Fructuoso Gelabert filmed Baralla en un Cafè (Fight in a café), which is considered the first fictional film in the history of Catalan and Spanish cinema.
From this point on, many other films have become a watershed in the evolution of the ‘seventh art’ in Catalonia. Of these was one of the key films of surrealist cinematography, Un chien andalou (1928), which was the result of an intense week spent by Luis Buñuel in Cadaqués with Salvador Dalí. As well, Montserrat is the main setting for filming of the blockbuster Parisfal (Daniel Mangrané, 1951).
During the Civil War, Espoir/Sierra de Teruel (André Malraux, 1938) became a valuable document on the activity of the Republican side, although it wasn’t released until 1978. In the midst of Francoism, Los Tarantos (Rovira Beleta, 1963) is a raw testimony about the urban fringes. And the period of the Spanish ‘transition’ cannot be understood without La ciutat cremada, The Burnt City, (Antoni Ribas, 1976).
In addition to the film production one must also take into account the preservation of this heritage. One of the main Catalan institutions dedicated to preservation and dissemination of such films is the Filmoteca de Catalunya, with a collection that includes more than 8,000 films and that has a regular programme of screenings. With regard to alternative and experimental cinema, the benchmark is the Xcèntric Archive of the CCCB. There is also the Girona Museum of Cinema, which displays close to 8,000 pieces of equipment and pre-cinematographic objects of the Tomàs Mallol collection.
The Museu del Cinema de Girona was created from the exceptional collection of objects related to the world of pre-cinema and the films of Tomàs Mallol made up of 8,000 objects, 10,000 documents (photographs, posters, prints, drawings and paintings), 800 films and 700 books and magazines. Opened in 1998, it became the first museum of its kind in Spain and one of the few existing in Europe./p>
Entering the Museu del Cinema is to embark on a process of discovery. And the permanent exhibition has in the spectator their own point of view. This is not surprising. Throughout history, man has been fascinated by the moving image, from the primitive Chinese shadows until the early years of cinema.
This discovery process is divided into 10 sections plus an audiovisual, which serves as a prologue to the exhibition, and an epilogue that refers to amateur and children's cinema.The main discourse ends in the 1930s, with the arrival of the first televisions.
Thus the visitor gets an educational and entertaining understanding of the workings of magic lanterns, optical boxes, cameras obscura, chronophotography, gadgets for giving movement to the first images (phenakistoscopes, zoetropes, etc.…), projectors... The visitor even gets to be fooled by several optical illusions, which demonstrate that, since ancient times, the most important thing has always been to surprise
The first film exhibition in Catalonia took place on 5th May, 1895 in Barcelona. Almost a century later, in 1981, the Filmoteca de Catalunya, was born, dedicated to the conservation of film and audiovisual heritage and to the dissemination of film culture.
Today, the Filmoteca de Catalunya has a collection of more than 45,000 books, 20,000 graphic archives, 8,000 films, 5,000 sound tracks and 1,200 pieces of original film equipment. It is the result of the work of conservation, restoration, cataloguing, documentation and study of the film heritage of Catalonia carried out by this institution.
However, the best way to get to know the Filmoteca is through exhibitions, publications and film projections, nearly a thousand each year.
After acquiring a first projection room in the street Travessera de Gràcia and more than 20 years at the old Aquitània cinema in Sarrià, in 2012 the new headquarters in the district of El Raval were officially opened. This building, designed by Josep Lluís Mateo is the location for the main display and exhibition areas, a library and a bookstore.
The holdings and film collections are conserved in the other main site of the Filmoteca, the Centre de Conservació i Restauració, located in Terrassa, in the Parc Audiovisual de Catalunya.
Since the 1960s, every year at the beginning of October, the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya (International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia) arrives punctually, the first in the world dedicated to the fantasy genre and which, over the years, has become an international benchmark. It is the film festival with most prestige and the widest media coverage of those held in Catalonia.
It started in 1968 under the name of the International Week of Fantasy and Horror Movies in Sitges and since then has been held uninterruptedly, offering the thousands of visitors, who flock there each year, film screenings, exhibitions and conferences. The festival has constantly received visits from performers, directors and producers of national and international renown.
The Sitges Film Festival is also the host of the annual awards of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation.
