Filmoteca de Catalunya

History

The Filmoteca de Catalunya did not exist as so until 1981. Instead, since 1963 to 1981 it was the Spanish Filmoteca's delegation in Barcelona. In 1981, once a democratic regime had been reestablished in Spain, the Spanish Filmoteca transferred its responsibilities and cultural competences to the Generalitat de Catalunya, which then created the Filmoteca de Catalunya. Since its foundation, the Filmoteca de Catalunya depends on the Culture Department of the Catalan government.

For some years, the Filmoteca de Catalunya's main activity was the daily screening of worldwide and Catalan films. Yet efforts were soon made to create a film collection, and consequently a Film Archive, now called Centre de Conservació i Restauració (in Catalan), was founded in 1992.

Through its history, the Filmoteca de Catalunya has also moved through different venues located in Barcelona. Its first theatrical venue was located in Travessera de Gràcia, and in 1991 it moved to an old cinema, the Cinema Aquitània, where it held its screenings for more than twenty years. During this time, the Center for Conservation and Restoration was located in a different area in Barcelona. In 2012 the Filmoteca de Catalunya relocated to its current headquarters in central Barcelona, and in 2014, the Centre for Conservation and Restoration was open in Terrassa.

Dissemination of Cinema

The promotion and dissemination of cinema and film culture -in particular, of Catalan film heritage- is among the main aims of the Filmoteca de Catalunya. Such aim is fulfilled through the development of different activities and programs:

Film Conservation and Restoration

The Filmoteca de Catalunya maintains the largest Catalan film archive, preserved and restored at the Centre for Conservation and Restoration, the Centre de Conservació i Restauració (in Catalan). The archive contains more than 170,000 film reels representing almost 23.500 titles, and 41.000 documents. The majority of the collection is Catalan material, but it also features some holdings from around the world. The film collection of the Filmoteca de Catalunya is formed, amongst others, by important collections: the Catalan Cinema Collection, the Segundo de Chomón Collection, the Laya Films Collection -that includes most of the films shot by the Republican production units during the Spanish Civil War- and several particular collections.

The main objective of the Center for Conservation and Restoration is the recovery, preservation, restoration, catalogue and dissemination of its collection.

Film Library

The Filmoteca de Catalunya's Film Library, the Biblioteca del Cinema (in Catalan) holds more that 40.000 documents and is part of several Catalan and International library networks and catalogues: the Generalitat de Catalunya's Specialized Libraries Catalogue, the Collective Catalogue of the Catalan Universities and BiblioCi, the international network of Latin American, Caribbean and Spanish information units (documentation centers and libraries) specializing in cinema. The Library was born as a result of the transfer of the Spanish Filmoteca's collection and of the CO.CI.CA (Catalan Cinematographic Collection) collected by Miquel Porter i Moix. The Library also holds the Delmiro de Caralt Collection (formed by cameras and other cinema objects), created by Delmiro de Caralt and Pilar de Quadras in 1924.

International Activities

The Filmoteca de Catalunya is member of the International Federation of Film Archives and in April 2013 it held the organisation's International Congress in Barcelona, which as attended by more than 300 members of film institutes from 62 different countries.

Since 2014, the Filmoteca de Catalunya has also been one of the venues hosting the simultaneous screening of the European Film Academy Young Audience Award.

In June 2015, the Filmoteca also held an international Seminar on Orson Welles's centennial, with the participation of several experts in the director's career and of Chris Welles Feder, daughter of Orson Welles. During this occasion, the Filmoteca de Catalunya organized a special screening of Chimes at Midnight in the Romanesque Church of St. Vicenç, in Cardona, Spain. where the film was originally shot in 1964. As a result of this screening, in 2016 the church was appointed as one of the Treasures of European Film Culture by the European Film Academy.