2023-06

Digital collections

Letter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Festival Director Miguel de Echarri

June 2023

Sometimes a festival archive also enables us to imagine what might have been. In August 1977, the Austrian artist VALIE EXPORT sent a letter to the Festival director of the time, Miguel de Echarri, proposing that she participate in the competition with her feature film debut, Invisible Adversaries. Attached to the letter, she included a cinema hand-out from the Forum section of the Berlin Festival, where it had premiered months earlier, together with a number of press cuttings referring to the film, critically acclaimed as a feminist revamp of the North American classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956). Forum, like the Quinzaine at Cannes, created at the dawn of the ’68 unrest, featured an updated programme including more experimental and politically committed movies, which would certainly not have passed muster under the diplomatic programming criteria of the major festivals during the Cold War. In San Sebastian, this revamp started a decade later when, precisely in 1977, given the ailing health of its director Miguel de Echarri and in full swing of the democratic transition, the Spanish government transferred management of the event to the city. This edition of the Festival, whose organisation included representatives of neighbourhood associations, artists and film clubs, saw all kinds of changes: the return of exiled artists, the presentation of an honorary Golden Shell to Luis Buñuel, the democratising initiative ‘Barrios y Pueblos’ and a programme, scheduled at the official Festival hubs, completely breaking away from the films screened in the city over the previous decade. This framework would have been perfect for featuring the work of a moviemaker such as VALIE EXPORT, coming from the context of the Viennese Actionism of the 60s and a key figure of feminist cinema. However, the artist’s proposal arrived after the closing date, albeit by only a few days. Thus, the only response she received from the Festival, also figuring in the dossier, was a brief note from the General Secretary Pilar Olascoaga: “Dear Sir [sic], We regret to inform you that the admission of the film has been closed days ago in all the Festival Sections”.

Document

Letter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Festival Director Miguel de Echarri

Identity statement area

ID: 38291

Catalogue number: AO1977-1978.0672.AUSTRIA

Location: M02.B03.C08

Classification scheme: 4.1.4. International directors

Title: Letter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Festival Director Miguel de Echarri

Date of creation: 1977-08-09

Level of description: Composite documentary unit

Extent and medium of the unit of description: 3 documents

Context area

Producer: VALIE EXPORT

Content and structure area

Scope and content: Letter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Miguel de Echarri requesting his participation in the Festival, with attachments including a brochure of the Forum section of the Berlin Film Festival where his work “Invisible Adversaries” was presented, as well as various press clippings related to the film

Places: Viena

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access: Conditions governing access

Conditions governing reproduction: Conditions governing reproduction

Área de control

Conservación: Anna Ferrer, Andrea Sánchez

Catalogación: Edurne Arocena (Ereiten)

Artxiboa

Digital collections

Document of the month

Letter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Festival Director Miguel de Echarri

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HLetter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Festival Director Miguel de Echarri (1977) San Sebastian Festival Archive [+]

Letter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Festival Director Miguel de Echarri

Letter sent by VALIE EXPORT to Festival Director Miguel de Echarri

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