The cultural centre Espacio Santa Clara today served as the setting for the discussing table on film archives convened by the Seville Festival with the aim of reconsidering the role of festivals and film libraries in the spreading of films of the past. This round table has had the participation of Carlos Reviriego, programming director of the Filmoteca Española (Spanish Cinemathèque); Jaime Pena, director of the Centro Galego de Artes da Imaxes (Galician Centre for Audiovisuals); José Antonio Hurtado, director of the Filmoteca de Valencia (Valencia Cinemathèque); Mariona Bruzzo, director of the Centre de Conservació i Restauració de la Filmoteca de Catalunya (Center for Conservation and Restoration of the Catalan Cinemathèque); Roberto Cueto, member of the San Sebastián Film Festival Selection Committee; and José Luis Cienfuegos, director of the Seville Film Festival. The meeting has been moderated by the journalist Eulàlia Iglesias and Luis Parés, director of the Madrid Cinemateca.
The round table dealt with issues such as the financing of film libraries, the need to attract audiences to cinemas, especially young people, the importance of a slow and not improvised collaboration and the future of retrospectives. In this sense, José Antonio Hurtado, director of the Filmoteca de Valencia, stressed that ‘spectators no longer go to these seasons, they go to watch specific films.’ This reality is reflected in a new model of consuming feature films, where ‘A few years ago, going to the cinema was part of our routine, but now it is more of an event, like going to a concert or seeing an art exhibition. That continuous space has been taken by the streaming platforms,’ said Roberto Cueto, member of the San Sebastian Festival Selection Committee.
