The press conference to present this sample has been held on Tuesday in La Nau with the interventions of Antonio Ariño, vice-principal for Culture and Equality of the Universitat de València; Abel Guarinos, General Director of the Valencian Institute of Culture; and the coordinator of the exhibition, Nieves López Menchero. José Luis Moreno, deputy director of Audiovisual and Cinematography of the IVC, has also attended.

Both Antonio Arriño and Abel Guarinos have emphasised in their speeches, the close collaboration between both institutions, not only in this project, but also in other cultural initiatives, such as the music festival “Serenates.”

The exhibition coordinator has explained in details that what is exhibited is “a small part of the great documentary collection that the Film library has” In this sense, she has detailed that a total of 61 large-format posters of more than 3,700 of which are available and 54 programs of the more than 3,000 are exhibited.

The exhibition “Material de sueños. 30 años de Filmoteca” assemble a selection of the film heritage deposited, recovered and preserved by the Valencia Film library. Among them, we can stand out hand programs, original scenography, scripts, post, photographs, bibliography and old newspaper library, cameras, projectors, samples of restored films and own publications. It is a careful selection of essential funds to know the Valencian audiovisual heritage that reflects not only an aesthetic and cultural task, but also the history of popular culture and its fashions. Among the most outstanding works, there are film posters of Josep Renau and Peris Aragó, as well as documentation that reflects the relation with the cinema of outstanding intellectuals and Valencian writers of the last century like Max Aub or Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.

It has been the will of the Valencian Institute of Culture that this exhibition is held at the Universitat de València. Ricardo Muñoz Suay expressed repeatedly that the future of film research and the same conservation of film heritage went through the university. And that's the way it was: when the Film library was created there were no universities that dedicated studies to cinematography; today all specialties of film and audiovisual in general have a place in the university, as well as its documentation specialists and restorers. The cooperation with the Universitat de València is a stimulus for the Film library in its attempt to reach levels of excellence in its work.

30 years of Film library

Since the 1930s of 20th century the film libraries preserve, restore and guard film heritage. The Spanish Film library served as the sole protector of cinematographic assets until, in the eighties, thanks to autonomous decentralization and the interest of public institutions and individuals to care for and disseminate the film culture, film libraries were created in different regions.

One of the first was the Film library of the region of valencia which was created by decree of the Council of 8 January 1985 and it began its work in September 1987. At that time, the first donations arrived, and among them were the family of the writer and playwright Max Aub, the widow of the stage designer in exile Gori Muñoz, the decorator and producer Francisco Canet, the family of Blasco Ibáñez, that of the family of Maximiliano Thous or that of the director Carles Mira. A part if these legacies can be seen in the exhibition “Material de sueños”.

In March 1988, the Film library headquarters was installed and opened to the public in the newly restored Rialto cinema.  In 1998, the law 5/1998 of 5 June created the Valencian Institute of Audiovisual and Cinematography that, in memory of his funder, was named Valencian Institute of Audiovisual and Cinematography Ricardo Muñoz Suay, known for its initial acronym: IVAC. In 2013, due to the creation of the Cultural Institute Cultuarts, the IVAC loses its management autonomy and denomination. Currently it is called Deputy Directorate of Audiovisual and Cinematography of the Valencian Institute of Culture.     

 The film library has been awarded in many occasions: for its publishing work, with the awards of the Association of Spanish Film Critics and the Spanish Association of Film Historians (AEHC); for its work as divulgation of the cinematographic culture it received the Sant Jordi Special award of Cinematography from RNE.  In addition to that, it also received the San Nitrat award for its work in film restoration and the J. Mª González Sinde award from the Spanish Film Academy, which is awarded to people or institutions that use the film medium to achieve social goals. In recognition of the muñoz Suay work, the Spanish Film Academy created the Ricardo Muñoz Suay award dedicated to foster historiographical research of Spanish cinema.