Culture opts for an administrative profile for the direction of the Spanish Film Archive

Ana Gallego will fill the vacancy left by José María Prado, who retired early on March 31, 2016 after 27 years at the head of the institution.

Ana Gallego Torres will be the new director of the Spanish Film Archive, a position she will take up in the coming days. The appointment follows the appointment this month of the journalist Carlos Reviriego as deputy director of the Filmoteca and responsible for the programming of the Spanish Filmoteca. In March 2016, Chema Prado, director of the Filmoteca since 1989, left his position, which had remained vacant since then.

Gallego Torres has a degree in Law from the University of Granada and belongs to the Higher Body of Civil Administrators of the State.

The Spanish Film Archive is the archive that guards the Spanish film heritage. Its mission is to recover, investigate and preserve cinematographic heritage and promote its knowledge. It is a general subdirectorate of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts, ICAA, and since 1956 it belongs to the International Federation of Film Archives.

Far from calling a public competition or appointing a professional of recognized solvency in the world of preservation and conservation of film collections, the new general director of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), Óscar Graefenhain, has opted for a markedly administrative profile very much in line with the strategy of dismantling the institution that, according to the workers, the Government seems to have initiated.