Alicante’s Filmoteca continues to attract more viewers step by step, yet it still records the lowest attendance among the Valencian Community film libraries run by the Valencian Government’s Institute of Culture. This gap is largely due to the smaller programming offer in Alicante, which puts it at a disadvantage relative to its counterparts in Castellón and Valencia.
The mission of the IVC Filmoteca is to disseminate cinema heritage through stable programming across all three provinces. It highlights enduring classics while also showcasing notable recent films that did not reach local cinemas in Alicante.
In Alicante, screenings take place at Teatre Arniches just once a week, with a single Thursday session. Last year, the venue welcomed 2,924 people across 41 sessions, rising 27 percent from 2023, which saw 2,292 attendees in 36 sessions. In 2022, the tally stood at 1,649 across 33 sessions, according to attendance data from the Valencian Filmoteca.
The growth is steady but modest. The total remains below 3,000, in part because 856 students participated in educational sessions, yielding an average of about 71 spectators per session. This places the Alicante Filmoteca at the tail end in terms of audience size within the Valencian Community, despite the consistent per-session turnout.
Castellón and Valencia
Castellón has drawn roughly twice as many spectators as Alicante, with 6,105 attendees in 2024 over 76 screenings. The film library operates two venues — one at the Teatro Raval offering a weekly screening and another at the Paraninfo of Jaume I University with two sessions weekly — serving a population of just over 170,000, about half the size of Alicante city.
València shows audience figures that far outstrip Alicante: 38,569 attendees across 458 screenings, plus 3,576 students in 40 sessions and another 11,970 spectators involved in the Filmoteca d’Estiu, which features a dozen films across 26 screenings. The Valencia facility runs films every day of the week except Monday, offering two daily sessions from Tuesday to Sunday.
The Alicante audience accounts for roughly 5 percent of the total in the Valencian Community. Among the three provinces, Alicante experiences the strongest growth in 2024, up 27 percent from the previous year, compared with a 25 percent rise in Castellón and a 0.9 percent increase in Valencia. In contrast, attendance in Valencia’s Estiu program fell by about 1.2 percent. This suggests Alicante has the greatest potential for growth if the number of films, days, and sessions increases. A decade ago, in 2012, attendance was around 14,000 when projections occurred three days a week across three sessions each.
Programación de películas de enero a marzo en el Arniches
Arniches Filmoteca presents in the first quarter of 2025 the second edition of the cycle devoted to the French director François Truffaut. It began on the 9th with Jules et Jim and continues with Stolen Kisses on Thursday, The Mississippi Mermaid on February 6, The Wild Child on February 27, Conjugal Home on March 6, and Two English Girls on March 27.
In addition, the cycle of premieres opened with On High by Hong Sang-soo and continues on February 13 with The Criminals by Rodrigo Moreno, concluding on March 13 with The Beauty and the Pain by Laura Poitras.