Digital collections
Digital collections
Press clipping from La Voz de España reporting on the first Film Forum session in San Sebastián (1954) San Sebastian Festival Archive
June 2026
Preserved by Artxiboa, the Aycart Collection has become a unique resource for understanding the role of José María Aycart Orbegozo in the cinematic life of San Sebastián; in 1958, he joined the Executive Committee of the San Sebastián Film Festival as a municipal representative. He went on to become first deputy mayor and, alongside Francisco Ferrer Monreal and Felipe de Ugarte, co-directed the transitional eleventh edition of the Festival in 1963.
A lawyer and member of the Film Commission of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Action, Aycart organised a public film forum session at the Gran Kursaal Theatre on 9 December 1954. The next day, La Voz de España published a report on the event, reproduced in this ‘Document of the Month’. The theatre was full. Following Aycart’s introductory remarks, the Jesuit José Antonio Sobrino gave a talk on the film that closed the screening, On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954). The choice of film was a calculated move: the Kursaal was scheduled to show this film that very week, and the screening on 9 December was added as a special event.
The report quotes a statement by Aycart: ‘Cinema is not bad; it is the hands in which it finds itself that may be bad.’ This statement encapsulates the shift in attitude that was taking place within Christian orders of the time. Since 1947, the International Catholic Office for Cinema (OCIC) had been advising the Church to participate in various film-related activities, and from 1951 Catholic Action set out to encourage the creation of film clubs and film forums to analyse the values conveyed by films.
In San Sebastián, the Diocesan Council of Catholic Action had already held its First Film Education Week in May 1954 at the Salón Novedades, with the aim of “instilling in the public a noble and positive interest in cinema”. Father Sobrino had presented a paper there entitled ‘Moral Criteria in Cinema’; two years later, he would become a member of the editorial board of Film Ideal.
When Aycart opened the session at the Gran Kursaal, there was as yet no formally established film club in San Sebastián: the “Catholic Action Film Forum” mentioned in the article as the sponsor was the first outline of a project still in its infancy. In January 1955, the Commission signed the Statutes of the San Sebastián Catholic Action Film Club, and the Film Club was formally established a year later, with Aycart as vice-chairman and the banker José Luis Areitio Irizar as chairman. In July 1957, it organised the first Film Studies Course, scheduled to coincide with the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
That session was a one-off event, with no institution yet in place to support it. One can find traces of what was to follow in the Archive.
Beatriz Bizarro Rodrigues, Manuel Hevia Carballido (EQZE)
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Press clipping from La Voz de España reporting on the first Film Forum session in San Sebastián (1954) San Sebastian Festival Archive
Other documents of the month
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Postcard sent from Moscow by the Festival’s General Secretary, Pilar Olascoaga (1989) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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The actress and singer Lola Flores receiving a trophy after attending the pigeon shooting (1954) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Letter of refusal from director and actor Hans Alfredson to participate in the Festival following the death sentences of Antonio Garmendia and Angel Otaegui (1975) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Internal programming document relating to the retrospectives “Volver a nacer” and “Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast” (1990) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Interview with the competition organisers prior to the 16th edition in 1968 (1968) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Letter from Luis Gasca to Jorge Luis Borges on the occasion of his participation in the round table discussion ‘Latin American Literature and Cinema’ (1981) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Actress Gina Lollobrigida presenting the San Sebastian Award for Best Female Performance to the distributor Procinor for “A Woman Under the Influence” (1975) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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The actress Josefa Flores González, better known as Marisol or Pepa Flores, at the Hotel María Cristina (1960) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Anne Bancroft at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre’s boxes entrance during the presentation of the film “The Miracle Worker” (Arthur Penn) (1962) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Letter from Nelly Kaplan to Francisco Ferrer on the invitation to the festival (1962) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Regulations of the II Cartago International Film Festival (1968) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Letter from Josefina Molina to the Festival organisers (1978) San Sebastian Festival Archive [+]
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Letter from Diego Galán to film director Jafar Panahi (1998) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Program for the 11th edition of the Festival International de Films de Femmes de Créteil et du Val de Marne (1989) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Letter from Wolf Kochmann to Pilar Olascoaga on the death of Bette Davis (1989) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]