The Instituto before Salamanca. The Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas' first years (1947-1995)

Abstract

This article analyses the role of the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (IIEC) as a meeting point for Spanish national filmmaking between 1947 and 1955 –Victoriano López’s years– and focuses on the discourses, debates and interests that characterized the Instituto’s early years. It therefore directs its attention towards one of the few original sources that have been preserved, a bulletin published by the Instituto´s students in 1951. This documentation has been supplemented with interviews and the few documents about the Instituto kept in the government’s general archive. The analysis´ cornerstones are, on the one hand, the film club’s activities, organized by students in the 1951 Film History, and, on a theoretical level, debates around the subject of Filmology, a theory used from 1947 as an attempt to supply the Instituto with a theoretical backbone, with uneven results. Through this process we can approach with first hand in­formation these experiences and essential discourses to better understand the importance of the Instituto as the epicenter of an emerging Spanish filmmaking culture.