The filmmaker Iván Zulueta (1943-2009).
The work of Iván Zulueta (1943-2009) was always at the forefront. With only two feature films to his credit –Un, dos, tres… al hide-and-seek (1969) and Arrebato (1979)–, the Basque connected with the most advanced North American artistic movements, specifically with Pop Art, thus opening paths not previously explored by the Spanish cinema of his time.
Now, the Ministry of Culture and Sports, through the Spanish Film Library, has acquired his personal archive, one of the most powerful in the cinematographic context of the second half of the 20th century, due to the profusion and diversity of its materials.
Filmoteca Española has acquired the personal archive of filmmaker Iván Zulueta.
From personal and family documents to creative works such as sketches, posters or drawings, passing through press clippings or correspondence with personalities such as Terenci Moix, Will More, Carmen Giralt or José Luis Borau, the file is made up of parts dated between 1960 and 2009, many of them unpublished.
As for the film collections, it includes pieces in substandard format in S8mm, although also some in 8mm, 16mm and 35mm that were shot between the 1960s and 80s. Among them we can find fictional or experimental works, filming of meetings and celebrations in which recognized characters or materials for the construction of works, discards and tests appear. It highlights, for example, part of the material with which Souvenir was assembled, a missing film till the date.
Iván Zulueta also left an interesting pictorial legacy.
The acquisition of this archive has been "a real event for the institution", he highlighted Josetxo Cerdán, director of the Spanish Film Library, who has highlighted the presence of reels of film in Super 8 and 16mm, some of them never shown publicly despite having a clear filmic intention.
“Personally, I would almost say generationally, Zulueta is a mirror in which we could recognize many movie-loving adolescents of the 80s. His scant but forceful work pivots on a radically groundbreaking concept of cinema in his time. He is a filmmaker with a unique sensitivity when creating images that, more than forty years later, they continue to hit the retinas of their viewers.”
Iván Zulueta's archive includes sketches, personal letters, film fragments...
In addition to the two lengths mentioned, Zulueta signed a dozen short films shot in sub-formats (Super 8 and 16mm) between 1964 and 1978, the conception and production of the television series Último Grito (1968) about the artistic and musical tendencies of the moment and two episodes for two programs on Spanish Television, Eyelids (1989) and Ritesti (1992).
His audiovisual work is complemented by a series of practices carried out during his time at the Official School of Cinematography that are already preserved in the Spanish Film Library. Furthermore, between the 1960s and the time of his death, Iván Zulueta developed a profuse graphic work that includes drawings and paintings in very diverse techniques, as well as photography. As a plastic artist he also created posters for films, film festivals and all kinds of film initiatives over several decades.
Work by Iván Zulueta, part of the archive of the Spanish Film Library.
A MYTHICAL FILMMAKER
“Zulueta is one of those mythical figures that runs through Spanish cinema, with a really scarce cinematographic work but a cult among many cinephiles, inside and outside our country. He was also an excellent illustrator, his work extended into many fields, from movie posters to album covers or book covers Cerdán has commented.
In the File The presence of polaroid photographs also stands out, a format in which Zulueta found an inexhaustible source of experimentation to create little imaginary stories through compositions of objects and dolls. Some of them have already been seen. in the "Meanwhile..." section of the Doré cinema's December 2020 program.
The incorporation of the legacy of Iván Zulueta to the Spanish Film Library joins that of other recently acquired archives such as that of Basilio Martín Patino or the graphic work of Cruz Delgado, and it is part of the institution's policy to increase its funds and collections, specifically with regard to the acquisition of materials related to great filmmakers.
Once the Zulueta archive has been studied in depth and digitized by the professionals of Filmoteca Española, it will be made available to researchers who require it.