The memory of our cinema through the stories of its professionals

The Film Academy presents 'Our memory. Spanish cinema', a project that seeks to preserve the memory of our cinema through the stories of its professionals.

This Monday, the Film Academy presented, within the framework of the San Sebastián Festival, Our memory. Spanish cinema, a project in which the TCM channel, the European University of Madrid and the SGAE Foundation collaborate. This initiative aims to rescue the memories of the great professionals of Spanish cinema through the recording of long conversations with them.

In the presentation, Antonio Resines, president of the Film Academy, stated that this initiative "is a project that we have coveted for many years and has finally been able to get underway, thanks to the close collaboration with TCM. We have already been able to start recording the testimonies and the intention is to make these interviews available to everyone: students, historians, researchers,..."

For his part, Juan Zavala, TCM's communications director, has stressed that this initiative links with the channel's philosophy: "we have always been interested in Spanish cinema and the stories that happened behind the camera. As soon as we learned about the Academy's initiative, we felt that we had to be an essential part of this project." TCM participates in producing a good number of these interviews. Some of them will be broadcast on the channel and will be available to viewers on the on-demand services of pay television platforms.

Luis Calandre, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Communication of the European University of Madrid, and José Luis Acosta, president of the General Society of Authors and Editors, collaborating entities of the project, also participated in the presentation. Both have reiterated their support for this initiative and have stressed that the memory “should not be lost.” Our memory. Spanish cinema has as its background the projects of José Luis Borau and Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón at the SGAE.

Among the first eight interviews carried out, are those of Fernando Trueba, 2015 National Cinematography Award, and Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón. "Our country is not very fond of memoirs; we have many writers, film directors... but we are not very given to writing film diaries or testimonies of a time. Historiographically it is very interesting because there is not much material available and these testimonies can be used in many ways," added the Cantabrian director and writer.

Our memory. Spanish cinema It is coordinated by José Luis García Sánchez and has a committee of advisors-historians made up of Fernando Méndez-Leite, Juan Tébar, Luis Alegre, Diego Galán and Fernando Lara.