The Director of the Patronato de la Alhambra y el Generalife, María del Mar Villafranca, has presented this morning the research done by the historian of cinema Carlos Martín that has recovered the Audio-visual Memory of the Alhambra. It is a labour of contemporary archaeology, from the mute cinema up to the present, which is completed with other previous looks and contemporaries paintings, engravings, literature or photography.
As consequence of this work of research, the Patronato de la Alhambra, in collaboration with the Film library of Andalusia, has organized the I Series of Audio-visual cinema Memory of the Alhambra that will take place from March to June, 2009 in the Val del Omar Room Cinema of the Library of Andalusia. The representative of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía in Granada, Pedro Benzal, and the director of the Film library of Andalusia, Pablo García Casado have been present at the act of presentation of this series, which will begin next Friday, 13 March, at 18:00 h.
Audio-visual Memory of the Alhambra
The origin of the project of the Audio-visual Memory of the Alhambra is in a small collection deposited as “Collection of the Alhambra” in the Film library of Andalusia, where the film materials that, by contract, the production teams were donating to the Patronato are gathered. Most of the film materials are discarded cards; tails of celluloid and only some of the materials are complete.
From this moment, it has started a process of location and recovery of these tapes for diverse purposes: the creation of a database of public access with location of the films, the instrumental use of this collection for the study of the contemporary evolution of the Monumental Complex (restorations, visitors waves, public uses of the monument), the digitalisation of the most interesting materials to create an accessible collection in the Archive of the Alhambra and finally the programming of a public series of projections in collaboration with the Film library of Andalusia.