Publications Alcine

HISTORY(S) OF A FILM FESTIVAL
2023

HISTORY(S) OF A FILM FESTIVAL

50 years of ALCINE, Alcalá de Henares/Community of Madrid Film Festival

From its birth within the historic Cine Club Nebrija to its current status as the Alcalá de Henares / Comunidad de Madrid Film Festival, ALCINE has become one of the longest-running festivals in the country as well as an international reference in the field of short films.

This volume reviews, in a rigorous but entertaining way, its first fifty years of history with the help of many of its protagonists, testimonies of prominent filmmakers and a large number of photographs, posters and unpublished documents.

More than a tribute to the festival, it is a small history of Alcalá and Spain through cinema and cinema through the festival.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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Cortografías
2021

Cortografías

Mapas del cortometraje español (2010-2019)

 

La publicación ‘Cortografías. Mapas del cortometraje español (2010-2019)’ reúne todos los ingredientes para ser libro de referencia para quien desee conocer al detalle el estado de salud y la evolución del corto español en la segunda década del nuevo milenio. A lo largo de sus 400 páginas, supone el más exhaustivo estudio sobre el corto del último decenio, analizando su evolución a través de estadísticas, datos y artículos que no dejan fuera ninguna tendencia, acontecimiento, o aspecto de un sector que se ha convertido, dentro de nuestra cinematografía y por méritos propios, en uno de los más prestigiosos y premiados del mundo. 

Este es el tercer volumen de una colección que ha examinado las tres últimas décadas del cortometraje español y que se suma a la consistente trayectoria editorial del Festival. Todo empezó en el 2000 con la publicación Una década prodigiosa. El cortometraje español de los noventa (José Martín Velázquez y Luis Ángel Ramírez, Eds.) y continuó más diez años más tarde con La medida de los tiempos. El cortometraje español en la década de 2000 (Jara Yáñez, Ed.). Antes y después, una treintena de publicaciones, además de catálogos de exposiciones y catálogos oficiales, forman parte de la colección de libros que ALCINE ha publicado en sus ya 50 años de historia.

Cristina Aparicio, Juanma Ruiz y Jara Yáñez, redactores y críticos de la revista Caimán. Cuadernos de Cine, están detrás de la cuidada edición de ‘Cortografías. Mapas del cortometraje español (2010-2019)’. De su mano, y de la mano de una decena de autores más, es posible conocer al detalle las razones por las que este decenio, marcado por dos profundas crisis al inicio y al final, merece una mención aparte cuando se trata de hablar del corto y de su importancia en el cine español.

Los autores/as de los textos son Jonay Armas, Javier H. Estrada, Pilar García Elegido, Óscar de Julián, Ismael Martín, Lola Mayo, Aitor Oñederra, Emilio de la Rosa, Javier Rueda, Eduardo Vega (también diseñador y maquetador del libro), además de los citados editores. 

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Cervantes in pictures. How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre.
2017

Cervantes in pictures. How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre.

Digital Edition

Cervantes en imágenes. Donde se cuenta cómo el cine y la televisión adaptaron su vida y obra es una de las publicaciones más cuidadas y queridas de ALCINE. Su primera edición nació en 1998 y recogía entonces 177 referencias filmográficas, todas las películas, ya sea de corto o largometraje, animación, documental o ficción, de las que teníamos noticias hasta la fecha. A través de sus 500 páginas, se recopilaban textos aparecidos en diferentes publicaciones periódicas a lo largo de todo el siglo. Se prepararon también para la ocasión numerosos textos que abordaban temas todavía poco o nada explorados en relación a la televisión, el cine y el autor de El quijote. Todo ello aderezado por abundante material gráfico y por una bibliografía significativa. 

En 2005, Alcine revisó la publicación y la amplió considerablemente. Más páginas, más películas, más textos, en un volumen que alcanzó ya entonces la valoración de principal referencia a nivel mundial sobre el tema. 335 obras fueron recopiladas en su extensa filmografía. 

Pero ha pasado el tiempo y muchas cosas han ocurrido en el mundo de la cultura y en los soportes de los productos culturales desde aquellas dos ediciones. Con la irrupción del libro digital, con la universalización de los ebooks, los lectores de libros electrónicos, el soporte en papel ha continuado su camino, pero ha dejado de ser la única vía para la lectura. Por ello, cuando desde el Festival nos planteamos seguir ampliando Cervantes en imágenes, convirtiéndolo en el libro más vivo e increíblemente creciente de cuantos a editado ALCINE,  estaba claro que la nueva edición tenía que dar el salto al digital, un formato que permite el crecimiento y la actualización continuados, la revisión y reedición sin los problemas de tiempo, espacio y presupuesto que rodean al libro en papel. 

Fieles a la filosofía del libro desde su origen, quisimos hacer algo más que una simple edición digital. Aprovechamos la ocasión para ampliarlo, para encargar nuevos textos que pusiesen algo de luz sobre aspectos como los Quijotes que no llegaron a realizarse, pero que fueron proyecto y se quedaron en las puertas de la producción, o sobre la influencia que los personajes de la inmortal novela de Cervantes han tenido en diferentes autores de toda la historia del cine. Algo que va más allá de la adaptación cinematográfica al uso y que ha atravesado buena parte de la historia del cine. 

Con la presentación de esta tercera edición, el libro da un salto cuantitativo (alcanzando ahora las 573 referencias de obras sobre Cervantes y su obra), y cualitativo, con más textos y ampliaciones de los existentes. Cervantes en imágenes, con sus más de 1200 páginas, es ahora más que nunca, una referencia viva y obligada para los amantes del cine y la literatura, de Cervantes y su influencia en el mundo que nos rodea. La edición ha corrido a cargo de Pedro Medina y Luis Mariano González. 

Esta nueva edición digital tiene, además, la singularidad de ser una edición gratuita, descargable fácilmente para que su consulta y lectura sea fácil y accesible, ya sea en tablets, móviles, ordenadores o ebooks.

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La medida de los tiempos
2010

La medida de los tiempos

El cortometraje español en la década de 2000

Después de un cierre de década, la de los noventa, que se anunciaba prometedor y optimista, el universo del cortometraje español metía el pie en el nuevo milenio cargado de esperanzas pero  también de objetivos que cumplir y grandes expectativas creadas en torno a sus posibilidades de futuro. Algunas de ellas se han cumplido, otras sólo a medias, algunas en ningún modo, pero los diez años que van de 2000 a 2009 han supuesto sin duda importantes avances y considerables mejoras que caminan hacia esa siempre deseada autonomía e independencia del corto con respecto al largo y en tanto que herramienta para la creatividad con valor por si mismo.


Como continuación necesaria del volumen Una década prodigiosa. El cortometraje español de los noventa (José M. Velázquez y Luis Ángel Ramírez, Festival de Cine de Alcalá de Henares – Comunidad de Madrid, 2000), el presente texto ha partido así de la información allí recabada para dar forma a un repaso general que, dividido en dos partes diferenciadas, pretende dar cuenta de lo más  importante acaecido durante los diez años siguientes tanto desde un punto de vista legal, administrativo e industrial (primer bloque del libro), como en lo que se refiere a lo creativo, formal y estético (con títulos de piezas y nombres propios, según tendencias y géneros desarrollados, y conformando un segundo bloque de intención más interpretativa).


La primera década de este nuevo siglo XXI ha visto generalizarse el uso del vídeo (auténtica revolución audiovisual del milenio), y ha supuesto la inclusión de Internet como herramienta  indispensable (y aún por desarrollar) tanto para la producción como para la distribución cinematográfica. En lo que se refiere al corto español, el inicio del milenio ha supuesto la consolidación del compromiso que cada vez más comunidades autónomas han asumido a través de sus sistemas de ayudas y subvenciones, además del asentamiento de nuevos sistemas de distribución que han supuesto un nivel de difusión nunca antes alcanzado. Factores y condicionantes como éstos se observan en el libro con el objetivo final de delimitar lo mejor posible el posicionamiento industrial del cortometraje dentro del audiovisual español además de su relevancia en lo que a aportación creativa se refiere. Con La medida de los tiempos. El cortometraje español en la década de 2000, en definitiva, no solo se ha querido reivindicar la esencia del corto (su duración) como particularidad única y autónoma para el desarrollo de la creatividad sin límites, sino que se ha pretendido también hacer alusión a su mayor o menor capacidad de adaptación frente a los distintos fenómenos que han protagonizado esta década.

THE ARITHMETIC OF CREATION
2009

THE ARITHMETIC OF CREATION

Interviews with contemporary Spanish film producers

The job of film producer is probably one of the least known and, at the same time, most fascinating of all the cogs in the intricate machine responsible for the manufacture of films. The idea behind The arithmetic of creation; Interviews with contemporary Spanish film producers was to investigate the roots of this profession "in the shadows" through the declarations made by the producers interviewed, to provide a varied and heterogeneous view of the field of activities in which they work in the ever-changing and highly unstable modern Spanish film industry.

The hybrid nature of cinema, divided between purely industrial and economic elements (the arithmetic) and those prioritizing the artistic base (the creative side), means the profession of producer focuses here on its role as a mediator, sitting as it does on the fence between the two sides and at the confluence of both. The producer must be able dispose of a sufficiently robust and stable economic base to foster the freest and most autonomous creative responses possible. By leaning towards one area of activity or another, not only are they defining the modus operandi of the venture, they are also defining the type of cinema being created. That is why the producers involved in this book, all of whom are currently active, have been selected to cover the widest and most varied range possible from different models that define and comprise the multi-faceted and sumptuous realities of Spanish cinema. They belong to different generations, and have different tastes, interests and approaches, from one end of the spectrum to the other, including those with long careers and newcomers, those aiming to create crowd-pleasing box-office hits and those who are more solitary; the risk-takers and outsiders. A large part of what defines recent Spanish cinema and its near future resides in the decisions, ideas, instinct and even the personal tastes of the protagonists of this book. And, to a greater or lesser extent, they all have something in common; their passion for cinema.

Skin and Masks
2008

Skin and Masks

Interviews with Spanish actors
Skin and masks, conversations with Spanish actors, aims to give actors a voice and let them speak for themselves out of character having removed the mask they put on for work. The goal of these thirteen conversations with actors is to for them to be able to discover themselves as the creators of film, so they can be seen as more than just the visible and superficial face of film.

The actors reflect on essential questions affecting their work: How do I turn myself into that other person who is not me? The daily realities of making films are discussed, of accessing the tools required on the set to construct a role. An interpretation requires effort, method, tricks, construction, consistency, design… And somehow, as is the case for all techniques, this can be explained.
Voices en time
2007

Voices en time

Conversations with the recent Spanish cinema
Voices in time. Conversations with the recent Spanish cinema is an attempt to expand the concept of what for some time now has been considered as "cine español". The 15 directors that had been interviewed for this book make it clear that they do not accept Freudian theories to explain their oeuvres, nor do they obey the paradigms of single ideas. Each one of them has his own interests and, in some cases, his own disorientation. All of them, in fact, seem submerged in the kind of confusion one encounters in the world of the seventh art today, where the formats, shootings, the ways of distribution and exhibition as well as the contexts for those who make films are constantly changing...

Some depart from solid theoretical questions, while others depart from concrete social realities. And then, there are also some who like the profession of the cineaste, but who do not consider themselves as cinephil. Yet, their profound differences add richness to this project, because they give a protean idea of their profession and of the motivations that makes them exert it, of the goals as well as the difficulties they encounter while realizing their projects.
Cinema isn't what it used to be. Therefore it's not sufficient to approach it the way we used to. In this sense, the questions posed in this book are always trying to adapt themselves to the interviewed without ever using identical schemes. From the beginning, we've been trying to record different voices. And, if we managed to do that, we want to make clear that this is mainly due to the good will and wisdom of Miguel Albaladejo, Jaume Balagueró, Eduard Cortés, Patricia Ferreira, Javier Fesser, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Salvador García Ruiz, Cesc Gay, Ángeles González-Sinde, Isaki Lacuesta, Achero Mañas, Manuel Martín Cuenca, Marc Recha, Alberto Rodríguez and Benito Zambrano. In the book, theirs will be the voices heard and we'll be the ones listening. And maybe afterwards, you will be the ones who continue the dialogue that we started here.
Looking forward to new millennium
2006

Looking forward to new millennium

When we ask ourselves whether it is still appropriate to use the term 'film musical' while referring to a certain kind of movies, what we are taking for granted is that we surely cannot apply the term to cinema in general anymore - something we have been doing for years. When we are talking about the Spanish cinema, we are facing the same problem. This book actually derives from the necessity to find a reformulation of certain ideas in order not to fall into commonplaces that keep us from recognizing what has happened during the last years. The main doubt that occurred in this case was the question whether it is still appropriate to speak of the Spanish cinema - whether this consideration isn't insufficient in order to describe everything that is happening in these instances. From this point, a large group of critics have tried to establish a general contextualization, an inquire arranged after different generations, an exploration of the actual state of the cinematographic genres and the various intersections in the opinions that the Spanish cinema provoked between people of different countries. With all these claims we have tried to open the path for future investigations on the views that have started to construct, cinematographically, the new millennium.
SHORT(S) BUT INTENSE
2005

SHORT(S) BUT INTENSE

The short films of the Spanish cineastes

The short film, a clear example of survival under precarious conditions, constitutes a fundamental part of every cinematography. Spain is no exception here and the country's short duration films have not only been the refuge for new directors who want to enter the cinematographic industry. The short film has also provided an open space to which consolidated cineastes have returned in different moments of their career. Despite its low profitability, the few screening possibilities, the disapproval that the media have shown towards it, the short film nevertheless still exists and presents itself in good shape.

Short(s) but intense tries to analyze these approaches to the short film via some of our most acknowledged directors. Without claiming to be definite, the book constitutes a step ahead in the acquaintance with the directors' little or even unknown facet. A facet that presents the fundaments of their style. A facet that allowed a development of their work with greatest liberty. A facet that demonstrated the directors' thematic preoccupations for the first time.

As Fernando Lara puts it in the prologue, "It is sufficient to see the list of Spanish cineastes on these pages to understand that the short film was crucial for those who did their first steps in the seventh art and to understand that those films (short in their duration but not small in their impact) form an indissoluble part of an creative "corpus" that one has to contemplate in its integrity."

Among the 39 directors which appear here, some are already dead. Yet, many others are quite active - including some whose more than promising careers have just started with the intention to show the most ample and varying repertoire possible. We can follow a subterranean history of the Spanish cinema via the short films of Buñuel, Berlanga, Bardem, Saura, Trueba or Amenábar - just to mention some of the mayor names in the history of our cinema.
Cervantes in pictures. How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre.
2005

Cervantes in pictures. How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre.

Corrected and expanded edition (first edition, 1998)

Seven years after the first edition of this book and due to the heightened interest in the figure and work of Cervantes during the last years, a revision of the text has become necessary. Furthermore, new works have been discovered in this short period - works that had been forgotten in the film libraries all over the world. While we could present references to 177 works in the first volume, by now we can already speak of around 330. Among them one encounters television versions, short films and full length- features, works with an experimental character, animations, documentaries, experiments and fictional films. Some of them true to the original, others freely inspired by the Quijote and other novels by Cervantes. In general, works that contradict the old prejudice concerning the bad relation between Alcalá's famous author and the seventh art. 

Since the very beginning of cinematographic history, Miguel de Cervantes has been the object of dozens of approaches that have - some more fortunate than others - tried to translate his incomparable prose and his novel-like biography into the universal language of images. This new and expanded edition of Cervantes in pictures: How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre is nothing but an attempt to reveal this almost centenarian relation, a relation that has mostly remained - despite the historical interest - in discrete oblivion. 

This book is structured into four different parts. The first part describes distinctive formats and genres in an ample and general way. By doing so, it focuses mainly on animation cinema, the short film, television etc. The second part focuses on films about the author and his most famous and influential books. The part offers a more detailed and profound insight via numerous recollected texts and texts that have been originally written for the book. An exhaustive bibliography including Spanish and foreign publications and an ample filmography (accompanied by various publications) complete the book. 

Cervantes in pictures presents, for a good part of the book, distant evocations, truthful adaptations, free inspirations and various references to which the creator of El Quijote has been the object during the twentieth century. His oeuvre is and will continue to be a font of inspiration and essential reference for an art that is - among other characteristics - narrative and searching through the water of literature in order to tell stories.

Edición digital de 2017: Cervantes en imagenes (PDF) 

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Edición digital de 2017: Cervantes en imágenes (versión EPUB)

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La vida es corto
2004

La vida es corto

Las películas breves de los grandes cineastas

El cortometraje ha sobrevivido a todos los males que le hieren desde hace decenios: a su escasa rentabilidad, a sus pocas ventanas de exhibición, al nulo aprecio que la crítica ha demostrado por él, a las etiquetas más tópicas y fáciles, etc. Sin embargo, la producción de cortometrajes no desciende y, aunque sea visto así por el gran público, no únicamente un reducto para los aprendices de cineasta. A pesar de ser el formato propio de las escuelas de cine y de aquellos que dan sus primeros pasos en el séptimo arte, también son muchos los cineastas de todas las latitudes y de trayectorias más que consolidadas que, sin embargo, siguen acudiendo a él cuando las circunstancias se lo permiten. Citar a Antonioni, cuyas dos últimas películas son cortos, o a Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Víctor Erice, etc., puede bastar para darnos cuenta de que no se trata de un formato marginal o de aprendizaje, sino de un campo en el que la libertad creativa y las posibilidades artísticas siguen seduciendo a cineastas de prestigio.

El planteamiento de esta obra no es otro que el de dar a conocer los cortometrajes de alguno de los mejores cineastas de la historia del cine. La intención no es otra que poner al cortometraje en su lugar y demostrar que detrás de todo gran cineasta, suele haber uno, varios o muchos cortos. La selección de directores no trata de ser definitiva, sino, más bien, un primer paso en el descubrimiento de la faceta menos conocida, aunque determinante, de cada cineasta. Entre esos directores, podremos ver algunos ya fallecidos y otros muchos en activo, incluso alguno con una incipiente pero más que prometedora carrera, con el fin de mostrar un abanico lo más amplio y variado posible. En futuras publicaciones se seguirá dando cuenta de los cortos de los grandes cineastas, con lo que se intentará poner un poco de luz sobre una de las muchas zonas en sombra de la historia del cine.

Hitchcock, Rossellini, Ford, Truffaut, Bertolucci, Scorsese, Von Trier o son solo algunos de los nombres que figuran en esta selección que nos mostrará facetas desconocidas de estos maestros del cine, y que también nos permitirá percibir las huellas, constantes o marcas de estilo presentes en sus cortos.  Como señala Hilario J. Rodríguez en la introducción, “para observar el estado real del cine en cualquier período concreto de tiempo, no hay mejor manera que prestándole atención a los mejores cortometrajes realizados, porque en ellos la personalidad de sus responsables casi siempre se despliega al cien por cien, poniendo de relieve características formales y narrativas desconocidas de las que carecen las películas comerciales”.

THE INVISIBLE LANGUAGE
2003

THE INVISIBLE LANGUAGE

Interviews with composers of the Spanish cinema

The Invisible Language is a collection of interviews with 18 cinematographic composers who have produced their work for the Spanish cinema during the 1990's and have established a new conception of the soundtrack in our cinema.

The book presents a profession of crucial importance for the reception and the final result of a film. A profession that - at least in our country - hasn't received the critical recognition it deserves. In these interviews, professionals of the field not only outline what have been their careers, but also draw attention to the various aspects of their delicate intervention: the artistic decisions, the technical solutions, their ethical and aesthetical positions in regard to the function they have to fulfill in the ensemble of a film as well as the deviations from and affinities to their collaborators. Their testimonies furthermore create a portrait of what has been the evolution of the sound track in Spain during the last 20 years - in the technological as well as in the purely creative aspect.
Reasons to Dream
2002

Reasons to Dream

Graduated at the E.O.C. in 1968, Antonio Drove belongs to the generation of cineastes that started their career during the last years under Franco and developed the mayor part of it during the last years of transition. His best known film stems from this period: La verdad sobre el caso Savolta / The truth about the case Savolta - a work that is crucial for an understanding of the Spanish cinema during the period of transition from dictatorship to democracy. The films of Antonio Drove have only irregularly appeared on the screens, sometimes even with years in between. Yet, by watching them in succession one can appreciate the coherence of his postulates: the negation of cinema as a mere spectacle, the affirmation of cinematographic narration as a means of knowledge for author and viewer; the belief in the ability of the image to accentuate and sometimes even transform the words; the effort that no single image should be banal, but instead full of signification. All these characteristics already appear in his first short films he made at the film school. And they can still be found in his most recent works.
The architecture of dreams
2001

The architecture of dreams

The architecture of dreams

Interviews with Spanish art directors

Via 15 interviews with some of the most notable art directors of our cinema, Jorge Gorostiza introduces the reader to a fundamental profession of the seventh art. The methodology of the work, the introduction of new technologies in the cinematographic stage design, unauthorized labor within the field, the relations to the rest of the technical team, and the use of a denomination that really defines the work are some of the topics in The Architecture of Dreams. The interviewees, all of them active, represent various generations of professionals and perceive their work from very different perspectives. Their outlines, drawings, and models also find their place in this volume that casts a bit of light upon one of the most beautiful and unknown facets of our cinema.

Interviews with:
· Ana Alvargonzález
· Gumersindo Andrés
· José Luis Arrizabalaga y BiafFra
· Antonio Belizón
· Wolfgang Burmann
· Julio Esteban
· Benjamín Fernández
· Javier Fernández
· Félix Murcia
· Rafael Palmero
· Gil Parrondo
· Josep Rosell
· Emilio Ruiz del Río
· Luis Valles
· Gerardo Vera

A wonderful decade
2000

A wonderful decade

The Spanish short film of the 1990's

As the decade of the 1990s reaches its end, the Spanish short film seems to have reached its peak. This moment of glory runs parallel to the boom of young directors who seem to have reconciled the Spanish cinema with the box office through their feature length films. The short film occupies a cultural space and a recognition by the media that would have been impossible at the end of the 1980s. The financial means increase in same proportions as the production planning gets better - every time more professional and with an excellent technical result, every time closer to what had only been possible in feature length films before. Furthermore, the deficiencies in the area of exhibition - a very urgent topic in the previous decade - seem to have found solutions that could help to clear a horizon that appeared - only few years ago - very cloudy and not too promising. The growing demand by some television stations and new diffusion circuits seem to free the short film from the state of agony in which - due to a lack of help - it was trapped in the beginning of the decade. For all these reasons, It wouldn't seem daring to affirm that the 1990's are the wonderful decade of the Spanish short film.

Yet, another question is to clarify whether the spectacular growth of the works' industrial quality and the constant increase of production sums correspond with a success in the artistic and creative territory. And whether the new perspectives in the area of exhibition aren't more than a deception - an illusion that may disappear from one moment to the next due to the weak structures that sustain the format.

Under these premises one can ask: Are the 1990's really a wonderful decade?

Words, stories, images, interviews with contemporary Spanish screen writers
1999

Words, stories, images, interviews with contemporary Spanish screen writers

As a crucial part of cinematographic creation, the script has occupied a relevant position within the Spanish film history. Having been revalued in recent years and coinciding with the decline of the "cine de auteur", the screen writer has ceased to be an "occult man" and has began to step into the light and benefit from a certain public recognition.

Words, Stories, Images contains 14 original interviews in which 16 active script writers of the Spanish cinema talk about their work. The origins in the profession, the methods of writing, their relation to the directors, the dependencies upon genre concepts and different narrative models and the characteristics of their most relevant films are some of the topics in these conversations with men and women who write on paper but always think in images. The list of testimonies collected in this book doesn't represent everyone there ever was, but everyone there is now.

The individual profiles of the interviewed script writers respond to very diverse topologies and even to different generations but, as a whole, also define a landscape in which it is not difficult to identify some of the features of the contemporary Spanish cinema - via the stories and fictions as well as via the environment that sustains them.

Interviews with:
Álvaro del Amo
Cuca Canals
José Ángel Esteban
Carlos López
Yolanda García Serrano
Juan Luis Iborra
Jorge Guerricaechevarría
Gustau Hernández
Luis Marías
Manuel Marinero
Manuel Matji
Joaquín Oristrell
Carlos Pérez Merinero
Joan Potau
Lola Salvador
Horacio Valcárce
Contra viento y marea. El Cine de Ricardo Franco (1949-1998)
1998

Contra viento y marea. El Cine de Ricardo Franco (1949-1998)

Editado por la Fundación Autor, con la colaboración del Festival de Alcalá
Cervantes in pictures. How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre.
1998

Cervantes in pictures. How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre.

First Edition

Since the very beginning of cinematographic history, Miguel de Cervantes has been the object of dozens of approaches that have - some more fortunate than others - tried to translate his incomparable prose and his novel-like biography into the universal language of images. This new and expanded edition of Cervantes in pictures: How cinema and television adapted his life and oeuvre is nothing but an attempt to reveal this almost centenarian relation, a relation that has mostly remained - despite the historical interest - in discrete oblivion. 

This book is structured into four different parts. The first part describes distinctive formats and genres in an ample and general way. By doing so, it focuses mainly on animation cinema, the short film, television etc. The second part focuses on films about the author and his most famous and influential books. The part offers a more detailed and profound insight via numerous recollected texts and texts that have been originally written for the book. An exhaustive bibliography including Spanish and foreign publications and an ample filmography (accompanied by various publications) complete the book. 

Cervantes in pictures presents, for a good part of the book, distant evocations, truthful adaptations, free inspirations and various references to which the creator of El Quijote has been the object during the twentieth century. His oeuvre is and will continue to be a font of inspiration and essential reference for an art that is - among other characteristics - narrative and searching through the water of literature in order to tell stories.

Edición digital de 2017: Cervantes en imagenes (PDF) 

Edición digital de 2017: Cervantes en imágenes (MOBI)

Edición digital de 2017: Cervantes en imágenes (versión EPUB)

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Mirror of looks. Interviews with new Spanish directors of the 1990`s.
1997

Mirror of looks. Interviews with new Spanish directors of the 1990`s.

(AGOTADO)
The intention of this book, which is structured into three different sections, is to present an x-ray of what could be called the regeneration of the creative landscape of the Spanish cinema in the 1990's. Therefore, we chose the perspective of directors and present - from their point of view - the different approaches that they propose in the texts. The time frame we used ranges from January 1990 until June 1997 (seven and a half years) - a time frame in which one could witness a continuous and prolific appearance of debuting directors which have stirred the interest of the media within short time and - in many occasions - also the interest of a young audience. An audience that is eager to follow the national cinema with novel indulgence and real interest.

The three sections that constitute this book are: A) a detailed historiographic study of the characteristics of the phenomenon; B) an extensive central part that contains 15 interviews with directors and C) an index of directors who debuted during the mentioned time. So, what we propose is a horizontal approach to the process, 15 vertical entries from the individual perspectives of every interviewed director and an extensive biofilmographic cartography that unites the totality of the list.
History of the spanish short film
1996

History of the spanish short film

Via different texts written by various historians, theoreticians and professionals from the audiovisual field and with the intention to highlight an important chapter of the Spanish cinema that has remained forgotten so far, this History of the Spanish Short Film provides an ample review of 100 years of visual expression. The ballast that the short film usually has to bear - this damn label of marginality - has stigmatized it in the editorial terrain as a secondary term and only some publications provide at least a little space for it. With an open conception of the term "short film" and trying to put as few limitations as possible on this format (which is free per definition), the different historical periods on the one hand, and the different sub genres on the other are mentioned here with the firm intention to provide a written fundament that has been missing until today. Documentaries, commercials, the industrial cinema, animation films and other usually ignored areas of the cinematographic field of short duration have found a place on these pages.

Rooted in each historical period, the pages of this History of the Short Film present daring cineastes, innovative as well as common films and avant-garde tendencies - forming 100 years of disparate, inspiring and unknown cinema.
Alcalá and cinema
1995

Alcalá and cinema

An approach to the city's cinematographic history

The double and fortunate coincidence that two important cinematographic events could be celebrated in 1995 - one on a universal level (the first public screening of the cinematograph invented by the brothers Lumiere), the other on a local level (the celebration of the 25th Alcalá de Henares Film Festival) - was the motive for the realization of this book.

Its content is structured into different thematic sections which provide a panoramic vision of the cinematographic evolution of Alcalá de Henares and of the film festival.

This book provides - for the first time - an ample review of the transformations that cinema has undergone in Alcalá - from the first public screening (1897) until the present (1995). Furthermore, the book includes an ample filmography of movies that were shot in the scenery of the city. The list contains works from 1905 until 1995, feature films and short films alike - which in many cases indicate its shooting locations. It also includes different cinematographic news clippings in their original text form.

The book also recounts the development and awards of the Alcalá de Henares Film Festival in its first 24 years of existence.
Animated stars
1995

Animated stars

When one speaks about the stars of cinema, one always thinks of actors and actresses which - for a century - have filled the screens; which have turned into heroes and heroines of thousands of stories in which we have suffered, loved, laughed and cried with them. They have become a fundamental part of our audiovisual culture. Every genre has had its own glamorous stars - stars we envy for their physical appearance, for their grace and sometimes for their haughty way of acting.

The animation cinema also has had its stars - even though we look at them with less envy than at those of the 'real' screen. Mickey, Betty Boop, Popeye, Donald, Bugs Bunny, Lucas and a lot of other animated actors and actresses have tried to convert animation into cinema, even though for some people it may still be hard to acknowledge that.

This text intends to unite the two worlds one can encounter in the shots of a film - the "real" world of the actors and actresses (the mythic ones as well as the secondary ones) and the unreal world of the animated films. That is what we mean by animated stars - finding examples in which real artists of flesh and blood have been represented in animation films as drawings, dolls or whatever else the animators came up with. They may be caricatures or realistic reproductions. Yet, they are always seen on the other side of the mirror - identifiable by their features (even though these are animated shot by shot.) The review that we are planning to undertake here encompasses silent films as well as recent works. But we are not claiming to be exhaustive. Apart from being pedantic, it would also be absurd to search for the smallest appearance in the most remote film. We wanted to offer - in the most entertaining way possible - a series of films that cover this extraordinary history of cinema. A history in which one talks about animation and the real image, of animated drawings and of other techniques, of actors of flesh and ink, of actresses of blood and paper, of artists working with plasticine and wood that have ventured to go one step further within their alternating careers.
The language of light. Interviews with Spanish directors of photography.
1994

The language of light. Interviews with Spanish directors of photography.

(AGOTADO)
"The language of light" is a collection of 14 interviews - each a conversation with a director of photography, chosen among those first-rank professionals that dominate the image of the Spanish cinema of the mid 1990's.

This book is essentially about cinematographic photography. It contains didactic approaches for explaining the secrets of the profession and its most elementary fundaments. At the same time, it penetrates the surface and reveals the technical and artistic contribution of the directors of photography for the development and evolution of the Spanish cinema.

The conversations enter the professional and creative universe of the interviewed cinematographers and present an x-ray-photograph of their working methods, demonstrate the ways in which they interact with the directors, show their impact on the processes of planning, shooting and post-production. The book takes a look at the mayor films of these cinematographers, examines their aesthetic conceptions and starts an interesting professional debate about the utilization of different formats, lenses, techniques and instruments that are part of the expressive arsenal with which these men give live to cinematographic fictions.

Interviews:
Javier Aguirresarobe
Jose Luis Alcaine
Juan Amoros
Fernando Arribas
Hans Burmann
Teo Escamilla
Angel Luis Fernandez
Gerardo Gormezano
Carles Gusi
Jose Luis Lopez Linares
Alfredo Mayo
Jaume Peracaula
Juan Ruiz Anchia
Carlos Suarez
Gonzalo Suárez. A fight won with fiction
1991

Gonzalo Suárez. A fight won with fiction

"The expedition following the footprints of the dinosaur reveals proportionally more information about the oeuvre than about the director which - as a consequence - permits a better understanding of the pictures than of their creator. After all, the author and his movies reveal themselves like a robust and bushy tree whose branches are nourished by the same wisdom that gives life to the trunk. This vitalizing blood invades the shots that nourish the celluloid which - in turn - opens the door to a poetic universe in full infuriation, seduced by literary myths, enthusiastic about conversing with the intelligent spirits, always reflexive and ambiguous in its ceaseless fabulation.

The challenge consisted in approaching an extraordinary cineaste - one that likes to coquette and sometimes even to commit adultery with literature (or is it maybe the other way around?); who unashamedly flirts in the company of Ditirambo and Rocabruno, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and Don Juan. The pursuit of this rebellious and untamable dinosaur - almost a species threatened by extinction - was an impossible undertaking, predictably full of obstacles and danger. Yet, an attempt was so worth it that no hake - deep frozen or not - could ever substitute the true pleasure to which we are invited by the hunting trophies exhibited here in the showcases of the following pages."


Excerpt of the article by Carlos F. Heredero for the book "The dinosaur and the hakes".
Iván Zulueta: The Avant-garde facing a mirror
1989

Iván Zulueta: The Avant-garde facing a mirror

IVAN ZULU ETA {San Sebastian, 1943) is an extraordinary figure in the landscape of the Spanish cinema of the last 25 years. His experiences with cinematographic images maintain a profound existential relation to his own life and his creative practices enter realms outside of the common naturalistic path. Capable of x-raying the ambience that surrounds him with new eyes and equipped with an inexhaustible visual imagination, Zulueta is an independent cineaste, more interested in discovering new expressive possibilities on celluloid than in working under the cover of industrial possibilities. A permanent avant-gardist "malgré lui", he is an ambitious and radical creator, an experimenter and hard to classify. Living and filming from the perspective of apartments, he exhausts himself for every inch of film that he imprints and wastes his imagination for every shot that bears his mark.
Pablo G. del Amo, editor of dreams
1987

Pablo G. del Amo, editor of dreams

(AGOTADO)
In general, cinematographic editing is the work of occult men that remain outside of the social glamour which usually accompanies the work of cinema professionals. By explicitly avoiding the characteristics of a users manual or theoretical "corpus", this book informs about the process of editing via the life and work of Pablo González del Amo - maybe the most prestigious editor in the Spanish cinema. His personal and professional career is marked by an ethic commitment that determines - with admirable coherence - his biography as well as his filmography. The precious contribution of 25 testimonies from cineastes and friends complete an ample documentary which also includes the subjective valuation. Preceding all these is an ingenious portrait - in form of a prologue - by the writer Manuel Vicent.
The evolution of soundtracks in spain: Carmelo Bernaola
1986

The evolution of soundtracks in spain: Carmelo Bernaola

(AGOTADO)
"… And what exactly constitutes the style of Carmelo Bernaola? One could consider various characteristics, although the principal one is always the presence of a main musical theme (even though he told me various times that he is considered by his professional colleagues as the musician who doesn't create themes) which is eventually the Leitmotiv and the musical symbol of the film. In this respect, Bernaola prefers to compose the theme for situations, stimulations, ambiences or ideas rather than for characters whose musical motif is repeated every time they appear. The second characteristic could be his preference for small orchestral formations (whenever he is not openly using quartets of strings and wind instruments) in some of his films which constitute an alternative to big symphonic orchestras - a possibility he used only rarely. He prefers the expressiveness that an instrument or an instrumental solo can convey in a certain situation or scene over the pompous expression of a whole orchestral section of horns or wood instruments because the sound might distract the viewer and detach him from the dramatic intensity of a sequence. The third characteristic - which I would doubt to affirm - is his carefulness in the articulation of music and the image; but attention - we are not talking about a musical here. He has insisted upon this point various times and he has always appraised the beauty that a sequence can possess when the music corresponds perfectly with the image."

Excerpt of the introduction by Joan Padrol
The stage designer of cinema: Enrique Alarcon
1984

The stage designer of cinema: Enrique Alarcon

(AGOTADO)
"... but Enrique Alarcón is a survivor of that cinematographic era that only lacked the blast of liberty to become the best in Europe. With his delicate smile, his ravenous appetite, his fundamentalism stemming from the Mancha; after all those years, films, awards, personal strokes of fate that have left their traces, he is here with me, with us, reconstructing in part his own nostalgia of an Ebro soldier, projecting trenches where we want to place republicans, nationals and other losers of a war that we are reconstructing precisely in order to generate hope.

Let the pages of this book serve as a possibility to discover and correct one of the greatest omissions in our cinematographic history and let Enrique Alarcón continue to demonstrate everyday what was and will return to be a great and beautiful profession."


Excerpt of the prologue by Luis G. Berlanga
Raúl Ruiz
1983

Raúl Ruiz

(AGOTADO)
Raúl Ruiz was born in Puerto Montt on July 25, 1941. Graduates in Law. Attends - without much enthusiasm - the Santa Fe film school in Argentina. Works as a script writer for TV Mejicana. Author of thirty plays for the vanguard theatre. Due to the triumph of the Unidad Popular in the elections, Ruiz starts to work in the cinema center founded by the new government. Migrates to Argentina in 1973 and later to France where he actually lives and works. This book is published as a retrospective homage within the 13th edition of the Alcalá de Henares Film Festival and in collaboration with the Filmoteca Española which already organized the first retrospection in 1979.
Emiliano Piedra
1983

Emiliano Piedra

(AGOTADO)
"Others use this pages for prudent statements of love or antipathy towards this affectionate personality of our cinema. Yet, this writer of boring and shabby prose, who dips his disheveled and flabby pen into the inkwell of an imagined illusion, just wants to stress in this preface that Emiliano Piedra doesn't enter this film industry easily - an industry hosting some examples of the human fauna that are hard to categorize, the common denominator of them being a lineup of merchants with absolute short-sightedness. Mere instruments of a factory that sells 'culture' (?) 24 times per second in those dark cinema halls, in the kingdom of shadows that are disrupted by the light of a projector that illuminates a silver screen."

Excerpt of the introduction by Matías Antolín.
The taviani brothers

The taviani brothers

Edición Fernando Monje y Luis Alberto Cabrera.
(AGOTADO)
The reader of the texts that have been collected here will encounter an almost purely theoretical, intentional and interpretative character in all of them. The Taviani brothers only seldom talk of style, schedules, shootings, actors or producers. Systematically using abstract concepts, the Tavianis conceive their films as answers to historic- political phenomenona and each and every one of their characters is exemplary in a certain sense (positive or negative) just as each of their characters' gestures are exemplary and transcend the individual personality to become characteristic for a representative personality.

The cinema of the Tavianis is fundamentally critical - yet, not only critical in regard to the world (like the left wing cinema and a good part of the right wing cinema), but also in regard to itself - because it is reflexive and self-analytical. The Tavianis not only believe in theories and theorize in their interviews - which, after all, is quite common - they also theorize in their films, not even afraid of using explicit, sometimes even extreme didactical methods (Voice off, obvious symbolism).
Jacques Tati

Jacques Tati

Ed. José Miguel Ganga.
(AGOTADO)
Just like all the other great comedians - save Woody Allen - Jacques Tati has never been very talkative nor too explicit in regard to his intentions which - undoubtedly - can be summed up in the most simple and traditional objective: making people laugh.

Therefore, it may seem daring to attribute such a long term aim to the author of My uncle since that means going further than only fulfilling that natural and modest purpose. Yet, if a cineaste works so sporadically as Tati, one can't help but suppose that during the long periods of enforced inactivity that separate each of his films, Tati wouldn't have seized to think about what he would like to do but can't, neither to think about how he would do it if the occasion would present itself. Rather, one could imagine that Tati would occupy himself with accurate planning of his next move, always knowing that it could be his last one. On the other hand, his sense of humor is not the most spontaneous, nor does anything in his films seem improvised: His films - the good ones and bad ones alike - are characterized by a level of elaboration and precision that seem to confirm the hypothesis that whatever happens in his films is carefully considered beforehand and nothing is left for chance.


Excerpt of the book, part of the article El proyecto Tati by Miguel Marías.