Digital collections
Digital collections
Letter from Guadalupe Echevarria to Luis Gasca, director of the Festival, with the proposal for the creation of the Video Festival
August 2023
In memory of Guadalupe Echevarria (1948-2023)
On 2 March 1982, a young woman called Guadalupe Echevarria sent a letter written on purple paper from Paris telling the director of the San Sebastián Festival, Luis Gasca, that she had had an idea: to organise a festival within a festival, completely dedicated to a new medium, video. A few months later, Echevarria, better known as “Guada” by those close to her, would head a team of four women (alongside Nuria Gutiérrez, Marta Pérez Yarza and Cristina Elguezabal) who set about turning San Sebastián into an international reference point for thinkers, artists and creators who were experimenting with video between 1982 and 1984.
The San Sebastian Festival archive contains all documentary traces of this experience, comprising 170 records of documents from the Video Festival Collection, as well as several photographs and myriad press cuttings. Through this rich documentary legacy we can understand how Guada’s proposal gathered new audiences around à la carte avant-garde video programmes, installations, music videos and seminars, as well as deploying a dense international network of collaborations and partnerships. In fact, it is impossible to describe the importance enjoyed by the video in the Basque cultural scene from the second half of the 80s without referring to this pioneer experience: from the Faculty of Fine Arts to the career of numerous artists, from experimental institutions like Arteleku to festivals and meetings in Vitoria, Tolosa, Getxo and Pamplona.
On 12 June this year, Guada died in San Sebastián at the age of 75. At the public presentation of the archive in December 2022, the research team on the Zinemaldia 70: all possible stories project paid tribute to this figure, whose steps we had passionately followed through her entries in the archive and also through discussions with her. With the publication of this purple letter, announcing the dream of a young 34-year-old woman who would end up playing the lead part in one of the most daring and innovative episodes in the event’s seven decades, we continue to stress the importance of her memory, essential in understanding the history of the San Sebastian Festival.
Full description sheet
Video festival collection
Letter from Guadalupe Echevarria to Luis Gasca, director of the Festival, with the proposal for the creation of the Video Festival
Identity statement area
ID: 39252
Catalogue number: FV1982-1984.0050
Location: M19.B01.C06
Classification scheme: 1. EXECUTIVE
Title: Letter from Guadalupe Echevarria to Luis Gasca, director of the Festival, with the proposal for the creation of the Video Festival
Date of creation: 1982-03-02
Level of description: Simple documentary unit
Extent and medium of the unit of description: 3 documents
Context area
Productor: Guadalupe Echevarria
Área de control
Conservación: Anna Ferrer, Andrea Sánchez
Catalogación: Edurne Arocena (Ereiten)
Letter from Guadalupe Echevarria to Luis Gasca, director of the Festival, with the proposal for the creation of the Video Festival (1982) San Sebastian Festival Archive
Other documents of the month
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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. [+]
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Letter from Luis Buñuel to the Mayor of San Sebastián Antonio Vega de Seoane (1960) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Letter sent by Antonio de Zulueta y Besson to the Cineclub Irún accepting to collaborate with them (1960) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
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Letter from underground filmmaker Antoni Padrós to Pilar Olascoaga (1977) San Sebastian Festival Archive. [+]
