| |
|
|
Estampas 1932 / Prints 1932
Alternative title: Estampas de Misiones / Mission Prints
1932 - 16mm, BW, silent, 11 min.
Restoration: Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana.
This valuable document depicts the basic programme of action of the Misiones Pedagógicas. By way of synopsis we have the main captions that articulate this silent film, which serve as an index of the ''prints'' that follow them:
''We are an itinerant school that aims to travel from village to village. To the poorest, to the most out-of-the-way, to the most abandoned...
''The Mission is directed at these villages, at these people. It brings projectors, gramophones, books. Its truck drives over the fields and fords rivers.
''Where wheels cannot go there are mules waiting.
''The first friends of the Mission are the children.
''An electrical rig is improvised...
''...and during the night the village turns out en masse for educational films, discussions, concerts and readings. During the day the Mission is a happy open-air school.
''Where the Mission is known it is triumphantly received.''
This is an institutional film and, as such, was conceived for purposes of promotion, testimony and propaganda, although we can see in it some of the aspects that more would have caught Val del Omar's attention as a ''missionary of the camera'', such as the rapt concentration of the villagers at the film screenings or the frank faces of the children, evidenced by the hundreds of photographs he took during those years. [EB]
^ |
|
| |
|
|
