this Ministry of Culture and Sports completed getting the file Luis García Berlanga in exchange for some 357,000 euros. After several years of negotiations with the family, an agreement was reached. goodwill agreement among the parties that 74 boxes containing documents of various types collected during the filmmaker’s life have become part of the state public collections.
Since the Berlanga family sold their home in Somosaguas a few years ago, the material is kept in the premises of Filmoteca Española, an affiliate of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), which will take over its preservation and dissemination. .
Thus and as approved by the ministry Levante-EMV, Government will keep the collection at the Filmoteca facilities in Madrid. because it was “bought for protection”. “It will be stored in the Spanish Film Library for the time being. until its final position, still to be determined». added.
Last January, the Minister of Culture himself, Michael Iceta, He showed himself willing to find “for obvious reasons” the Berlanga Archive in Valencia, the filmmaker’s hometown. The Berlanga family also expressed their wishes for the collection to be kept and displayed in Valencia on several occasions. «The best compliment is that my father’s legacy has a physical place to display. “We would have liked it to be in Valencia when Fernando García-Berlanga receives the Levante-EMV Award in 2021.”
Another son of the director, José Luis García-Berlanga, yesterday elevator-EMV that the decision regarding the possible transfer of his father’s archive to Valencia rests with the Ministry of Culture and the Generalitat. “I hope I go to Valencia,” said García-Berlanga, “aware” of “President” Ximo Puig. He would be “excited” to see it exhibited in his hometown. However, Berlanga’s eldest son acknowledged that in negotiations with the ministry the Berlanga family did not place any conditions on the possible transfer of the archive to Valencia.
Since this newspaper was already published a year ago, Generalitat does not want its corporate memory to be diluted after the year dedicated to the filmmaker for Luis García Berlanga’s centennial in 2021 and plans to offer a dedicated space to the director. studied and disseminated his work, and displayed personal memoirs and objects related to his films.
Presidential sources yesterday confirmed that the ministry remained “open” in principle for the Berlanga dossier to be finalized in Valencia, but also acknowledged that there was no specific destination or official confirmation on the matter.
Sandra Gómez, deputy mayor of Valencia, assured that “the next step will be for the city to host this file and work to get Berlanga back home”. The socialist spokesman “opened it to the use of the ministry to start evaluating ideal areas that will become reference sites for Berlanga.”
Valencia CF’s notes and subscriptions
The documents that make up the archive are very diverse and include the entire trajectory of Berlanga. This, according to the ministry, One of the “most complete and complex” files received by the Spanish Film Library, As conservation and future consultations are thought to shed a lot of light on the cultural life of Spain and one of its most relevant artistic and cultural figures in the past century.
Heritage is organized into several categories: personal and family documents, creative work, working documents, correspondence, awards, souvenirs and personal objects, graphic documents, magazines and press clippings, and work created by others.
Personal and family documents include: Personal memories such as albums with family photos, notebooks with childhood school notes, documents from their time in the Blue Division, or Valencia Football Club season tickets or collections of Christmas cards taken from other movie figures.
The original scripts, typed or handwritten, with explanations and ideas of Berlanga himself, are among the works of creation. There are several among others versions of some of his most iconic movies What “That happy couple”, “Welcome Mr Marshall!” anyone ‘Do not’, as well as lots of unfinished project scripts.
According to the ministry, the archive perfectly documents, through these writings, Berlanga’s conflict and constant conflicts with Franco’s censorship, and will allow us to know firsthand the consequences of this in one of the most relevant Spanish artworks of the last period. century. There is also a large sample of drafts of speeches, conferences, interventions at congresses, academic meetings, and other types of forums over several decades.
The archive also preserves correspondence with some important figures of Spanish cinema, such as Rafael Azcona, Juan Antonio Bardem, Basilio Martín Patino, Luis Ciges or José Luis López Vázquez. Added to this are nearly a hundred awards and prizes, as well as memorabilia and personal items such as documents from the 1962 Oscar awards ceremony for which ‘Plácido’ was nominated.
Photos, posters and illustrations
Graphic documentation is also an important part of the filmmaker’s legacy: on paper he captures photos of positives, negatives and personal, family and professional themes as well as corporate and political actions and many of his films.
Among the documents are: Lots of drawings by Berlanga with a different theme. Some are erotic, others are just characters, objects or comics. They are made on a wide variety of supports and in a variety of techniques such as pencil drawing, watercolor or felt-tip pens. Notebooks are also included storyboardsas “Welcome back, Mr Marshall!” or one ‘Kalabuç’, as well as established plans such as those for ‘that happy couple’, and location search graphic files.
This group is complemented by a collection of film festivals and promotional material for their films, as well as their own and others’ movie posters. The archive also contains photocopies of articles from press clippings, newspapers and interviews and information about Luis García Berlanga’s films in different publications.