The Film Academy, Pepe Escriche Award at the 46th Huesca International Film Festival

Joan Álvarez, general director of the institution, has indicated that "the Academy wants to show its satisfaction and pride by joining a list of excellent personalities and institutions of cinema and the artistic and social contribution to the medium."

He Huesca International Film Festival has announced that the Pepe Escriche Award of its 46th edition will be for the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain. This recognition, which highlights entities, institutions, people or collective initiatives that serve as a bridge between cultures through cinema, will be awarded during the inaugural gala on June 8.

The Academy, which endorses the three contests of the Alto Aragonese competition for the Goya Awards, has shown its satisfaction and pride “by joining a list of excellent personalities and institutions that summarize the best of cinema and the artistic and social contribution to the medium,” in the words of Joan Álvarez, general director of the institution.

The Huesca International Film Festival, in its 46th edition, will award the Pepe Escriche Award to the Academy for “the great work of dissemination, exchange, research and development carried out". A recognition that celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2018 and whose objective is to highlight entities, institutions, people or manifestations related to cinema and audiovisual arts that work for understanding between different cultures through the seventh art.

“The Film Academy, through its Presidency and Board of Directors, wants to express its satisfaction for having been chosen for the Pepe Escriche award, and its pride in joining a list of excellent personalities and institutions that summarize the best of cinema and the artistic and social contribution to the medium,” declared Joan Álvarez, general director of the Film Academy.

This award, together with the City of Huesca Award and the Luis Buñuel Award, make up the three tributes given each year by the Alto Aragonese competition. Established in 2009, it serves as a tribute to the figure of one of the Festival's precursors and its director for more than thirty years: José María Escriche, who died in 2008. The trophy awarded is a knife whose edge represents a fragment of celluloid and its author is the renowned sculptor Isidro Ferrer, National Prize for Design and Illustration.

The Film Academy thus joins an illustrious list of winners that include the Cuban School of San Antonio de los Baños, the World Cinema Fund foundation, Cinergia, the Morelia Film Festival, the Spanish Film Archive, the joint initiative of the San Sebastián Festival and the Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine of Toulouse: “Cinema in Progress”, Jacetana Pilar Martínez Vasseur -director of the Nantes Spanish Film Festival- and the Ibermedia program, last year.

The Huesca International Film Festival is sponsored by the Provincial Council of Huesca, the Huesca City Council, the Government of Aragon, the Anselmo Pié Foundation and Obra Social “la Caixa”.

An Academy by and for cinema

The Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain was born from the need to protect and work for the future of the cultural heritage that this industry represents in our country. The Academy was presented in 1986 but it was a few months before, on November 12, 1985, when the producer Alfredo Matas convened a group of well-known film personalities at the O'Pazo restaurant in Madrid to discuss the issues that worried them and look for solutions. The directors Luis García Berlanga and Carlos Saura, the production directors Marisol Carnicero and Tedy Villalba, the actors José Sacristán and Charo López, the editors Pablo González del Amo and José Luis Matesanz, the scriptwriter Manuel Matji, the musician José Nieto, the director of photography Carlos Suárez and the decorator Ramiro Gómez participated in this meeting. From this meeting would emerge the germ of an association, endorsed by eighty-seven professional firms, which would present itself and begin its activity formally shortly afterwards.

The Academy, with a non-profit character and declared of public utility, has had an illustrious cast of presidents among which are some of the most outstanding women and men of our cinema, such as Marisa Paredes, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, José Luis Borau, Ángeles González-Sinde, Álex de la Iglesia or Antonio Resines. Currently it is the Oscar winner Yvonne Blake who runs the position.