A Permanent History of Catalan Cinema

In collaboration with the Catalan Film and Audiovisual School (ESCAC), the implementation of a systematic plan to digitise our heritage collection has finally made it possible to increase the visibility of a series of key titles in the history of Catalan cinema, produced between 1940 and 2014, which, despite being well preserved in their analogue format, are unable to be screened in the current context of digital exhibition.

This marks the launch of A Permanent History of Catalan Cinema, which will include the ten feature films that we digitise each year, in addition to our regular programme of previews and tributes. The newly digitised films will be screened for the first time at the Filmoteca de Catalunya.

Other screenings of classic and contemporary films will subsequently be added to this permanently open window on the world of Catalan cinema. The initiative was launched in 2022, with the production of the very first digital copies of eight feature films and eight short films made in Catalonia from the 1940s onwards. In 2023 and subsequent years, an external commission made up of representatives of the film industry will select the titles proposed by the Filmoteca for digitisation on the basis of certain criteria, such as conservation status, digital copy availability and the agreement of the relevant rights owners to release them for cultural use.

Thus, a total of ten feature films, as well as a dozen short films are expected be digitised and added to the collection each year.

Screenings at the Filmoteca

Here we present the film titles scheduled to be screened every month during 2023, as part of the A Permanent History of Catalan Cinema season, along with details of the main protagonists of each film and the list of titles the commission has selected for digitisation in 2023, which we will be showing in 2024.

We kick off with a classic Barcelona police film, A tiro limpio (1964), made by Paco Pérez-Dolz, who was also responsible for the didactic short film Lecciones de cinematografía, before moving on to the following programme of feature films which will be screened in subsequent months:Los felices 60 (Jaime Camino, 1963), Tren de sombras (José Luis Guerín, 1997), Boom Boom (Rosa Vergés, 1990), Vida de familia (Josep Lluís Font, 1963), Furia española (Francesc Betriu, 1975), Un vaso de whisky (Juli Coll, 1959) and La ciutat cremada (Antoni Ribas, 1976).

Online viewing

Once screened, all titles will be available to view online via the Filmoteca de Catalunya channel for a period of one month.

In collaboration with: