MEMORABLE FILMS
CARTE BLANCHE: Memorable Films
Thanks to the Mostra de València for this beautiful gift in the form of a carte blanche, which has allowed me to choose a series of titles that, although in some cases they may seem strange (Paris, Texas or Robin and Marian), by their nature and origin belong to the Mediterranean universe. As could not be otherwise, the presence of Spanish cinema in my selection was inevitable, beginning with a Valencian filmmaker so closely linked to the festival as Berlanga, represented in the cycle by one of the crowning films of his oeuvre, Plácido; continuing with the inclusion of The Spirit of the Beehive, by one of the fundamental directors in the history of our cinema, Víctor Erice, whose films have been programmed both at the Mostra and at the Filmoteca Valenciana; and ending with that unclassifiable and fascinating jewel by Iván Zulueta, Arrebato, a film released in 1980, the year the Festival began its journey. The rest of the films in the cycle come from beyond our borders, though not from beyond our sea. Aside from my emotional cinephile attachment to them, and beyond their complete pertinence as Mediterranean cinema, they stand on their intrinsic value. Those who sign them are distinguished names such as Alain Resnais, a peripheral satellite of the Nouvelle Vague, present with Hiroshima mon amour in the cycle that the Mostra dedicated in its 1984 edition to the famous new French cinema movement that illuminated cinematic modernity; Richard Lester, who, despite being British, came to Spanish lands to shoot part of Robin and Marian; Wim Wenders, whose Paris, Texas, the culmination of his American dream, saw the light thanks to the invaluable contribution of the prestigious and historic French distributor and producer Argos Film; and finally, the Greek Theo Angelopoulos, discovered —when he was a complete unknown in Spain— by the Festival, which dedicated a retrospective to him in the 1988 edition, and whose importance as a filmmaker was endorsed by the Filmoteca Valenciana almost a decade later with a new cycle on his work. From him we will be able to see Landscape in the Mist and Ulysses’ Gaze.
All these films have been seen in Valencia through various channels and at different times: at the Mostra, at the Filmoteca Valenciana, in the film club circuit, or in commercial cinemas, whether as premieres or re-releases. It is reliable proof of the city’s historic cinephile effervescence. I will speak about this, from my own experience as a regular spectator, in the lecture Valencia, un territorio cinéfilo. De la exhibición comercial a la difusión cultural del cine, an activity that completes, as an inauguration, this carte blanche that the festival has so generously allowed me to programme.
José Antonio Hurtado
