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Festivales de España / Festivals of Spain
1963-1964 - 35mm, colour, 12 reels
This title corresponds to one of the still unresolved enigmas of Val del Omar's filmography. However, the project is relatively well documented whose origin was the preparations to provide content for the Spanish Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1964 and 1965. For the occasion Val del Omar conceived a series of ten documentaries on forms of popular culture, under the title of ''Festivales de España'', promoted by the then Minister for Information and Tourism, Manuel Fraga, as well as a series of installations or displays (of which no further details are known).
Various references suggest that Val del Omar completed only a few of the films in the series. However, on the 1st of February 1965 he drew up a ''List of the short films in colour that make up the first documentary series of Festivals of Spain'', detailing the title and duration of each of the ten:
1. Extremadura - Greek Theatre in Mérida (10 minutes)
2. Balearic Islands - Remembering Fray Junípero Serra (10 minutes)
3. Catalonia - Altarpiece of San Armengol in the Cathedral of La Seu d'Urgell (10 minutes)
4. Galicia - Galician Ballet of La Coruña (12 minutes)
5. Levante - Festivals in Elche and Torrevieja (10 minutes)
6. Andalucia - Festivals in Seville, Córdoba, Cádiz and Málaga (18 minutes)
7. Castilla - Eight Festivals (10 minutes)
8. Religious festivals in Spain (12 minutes)
9. Blood Moon (10 minutes)
10. Festival in the bowels (25 minutes)
At the end of this list, with details of the main sequences and observations on the sound, Val del Omar indicated that, having finished editing the images, the completion of each of the films was dependent on the collaboration of various writers and musicians. Years later he added a resentful apostrophe to the typed text: ''I killed myself working''.
We do know that at the very least Val del Omar brought the series to a fairly advanced state of elaboration, since a considerable amount of the material he shot has survived: some sections are in the original format and in colour, while others are on videotapes that were found in a precarious condition (apparently made from black and white telecine workprints), this being the source of the images illustrating this section. A number of the live sound recordings corresponding to these films have also survived, but nothing is known of the whereabouts of the negatives, positives or edited workprints. [EB]
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