2024-01

Digital collections

Letter sent by Antonio de Zulueta y Besson to the Cineclub Irún accepting to collaborate with them

January 2024

In February 1960, the recently founded Cineclub Irún (CCI) wrote to the San Sebastian Film Festival inviting the director of the time, Antonio de Zulueta y Besson, to contribute to the magazine published by the organisation on its monthly programme.

Zulueta answered with this letter in which he celebrates the existence and untiring work of the Gipuzkoan film clubs which, “facelessly and in complicated economic conditions”, work to exchange film knowledge and cultivate spectators. The letter is an important gesture of mutual recognition: the event guaranteed access to its screenings and publications to the organisers of numerous film clubs and cultural centres while in turn recognising the need to draw on the audiences educated throughout the year by these self-same film associations.

Promoted by Jorge Oteiza and Néstor Basterretxea, the Cineclub Irún was a fundamental pillar in the Basque cultural scene. A place of meeting and reflection for moviemakers, musicians, writers and artists including Rafael Ruiz Balerdi, Menchu Gal and Amable Arias, not to mention rewarding exchanges with other film clubs such as those of Errenteria, Pasajes and Azpeitia. It was also a socio-political space in view of the club’s cross-border location: a place from which to imagine the building of international networks at a time when freedom was greatly restricted.

Its educational aspect and its drawing power for a variety of aesthetic expressions laid the way to the creation of numerous events, programmes and seminars, such as the 1st Cinema Meeting for Children, the Competition for Amateur Filmmakers and the organisation in October 1961 of the 1st Art Week, one of the most ebullient collective experiences in the history of the film club, which brought to the table discussions on the today and tomorrow of contemporary Basque art.

Document

Letter sent by Antonio de Zulueta y Besson to the Cineclub Irún accepting to collaborate with them

Identity statement area

ID: 37693

Catalogue number: AO1960.COR

Location: M01.B01.C04

Classification scheme: 4.4.4. Other film and cultural institutions

Title: Letter sent by Antonio de Zulueta y Besson to the Cineclub Irún accepting to collaborate with them

Date of creation: 1960-02-10

Level of description: Simple documentary unit

Extent and medium of the unit of description: 1 document

Context area

Producer: Antonio de Zulueta y Besson

Content and structure area

Places: Donostia-San Sebastián, Irún

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access: Conditions governing access

Conditions governing reproduction: Conditions governing reproduction

Control area

Preservation: Anna Ferrer, Andrea Sánchez

Cataloguing: Edurne Arocena (Ereiten)

Artxiboa

Digital collections

Document of the month

Letter sent by Antonio de Zulueta y Besson to the Cineclub Irún accepting to collaborate with them

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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. [+]

Letter sent by Antonio de Zulueta y Besson to the Cineclub Irún accepting to collaborate with them

Letter sent by Antonio de Zulueta y Besson to the Cineclub Irún accepting to collaborate with them

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