The town councillor of Linguistic Politics, Esther Sapena, along with Carme Melo, director of the International Centre of Gandia UV; Josepa Costa, Superior Technician of Linguistic and Cultural Promotion from the UPV at the Campus of Gandia, and Jordi Puig, vice president of the Association of municipalities from la Safor-Valldigna, have presented a new edition of the campaign Cinema in Valencian in Gandia. The project, which began in Gandia in 2006, -now 18 years ago-, was jointly organised by the City Council's AVIVA Agency for the Promotion of Valencian, the Promotion and Linguistic Normalisation Service of the UPV at the Gandia Campus, the Gandia Centre of the Universitat de València, and recently also the association of municipalities of la Safor.

The projections will also be at Teatro Serrano, at 7pm, and for the first time free, one of the main news. They will begin next Wednesday, 27 November, with the film L’abadessa by Antonio Chavarrias. It will continue on Wednesday, 18 December, with L’àvia i el foraster directed by Sergi Miralles, to then end with Mamífera, which will be projected on 15 January. In addition, the offer into the projection schools is still open for the film El gat amb botes, l’últim desig, in the morning, next 4 December, for 3rd grade Primary students, whose participation has already been confirmed by 15 school centres and 665 children, double than last year.

In the presentation, the director of the CIG-UV, Carme Melo has shown her concern, since Valencian continues being a minoritized language according to all studies, ‘for this reason is really important that it reaches all spaces. The Universitat de València always promotes the use of Valencian as vehicular language for the educational staff. What’s more, projects like this bring closer Valencian to a space it doesn’t reach, like cinema. It is really important for the language to be alive, and be used in all ambits. Even more now with cutting policies that also affect the language’       

For her part, the town councillor Esther Sapena says this campagin has been organized ‘with the conviction in the importance and necessity of offering cinema in our language, in Valencian, in their original version. All in all, we talk about the continuation of the cinema offer, extended and diverse, that includes the premiere of relatively new films in Valencian version and of a contrasted cinematographic quality’, explains Sapena, who reminded that the City Council of Gandia was pioneer in offering Cinema in Valencian of recent premiere to children from all the city, through the campaign of Family Cinema projected many years ago on Sundays at the Serrano. ‘All along these past years, we’ve been able to enjoy the projection in Valencian of from classics like King Kong to the most new cinema, like Harry Potter and other important authors like Isabel Coixet, Woody Allen or Michel Ocelot'.

 Meanwhile, the vice president from the Association of municipalities, who’s going to sum up for the second time, has highlighted the work on social media of the institutions and their desire for the cinema to reach other town councils: ‘Valencian is part of us and is really important to incorporate it in our hobbies, into the linguistic normalization”. Costa has said that, according to the last studies, Valencian is lacking the most in hobbies and culture. ‘Precisely, we start the campaigns in commercial rooms to demonstrate the lack of offer in our language. 18 years later it has been demonstrated that it has taken a good and necessary reception’. Finally, he has reclaimed also the importance of supporting the dubbing of our language.