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Ourense
is
a land of filmmakers and has always been linked to cinema thanks to
pioneer local directors such as Carlos Velo and Antonio Román.
In
the mid 70s Ourense
welcomed the pioneer “Xornadas de Cine” (Cinema Series), a true
reference for the history of cinema in Galicia.
Those
“Xornadas” allowed the audience to watch for the first time many
foreign and Galician 16-mm productions often shot underground, as
well as films that hadn’t yet been shown commercially or that were
censored at that time.
The
organization of this very event, which continued to take place until
the 1980s, was the seed from which Galician cinema would later bloom.
The
spirit of the series was recovered in 1996, when the first Ourense
Film Festival (OFF) was created by filmmaker Eloy Lozano, who opened
the door to the promotion of Galician cinema and to the screening of
European and international films.
The
definitive
impulse for its development came from the Ourense local government
and was completed in 1998 with the creation of the Ourense Film
Festival Consortium, formed by representatives of the City Hall and
of the County Council.
Later,
the Festival expanded its institutional spectrum with the help of
associated institutions such as the Galician Government and the ICAA, the Spanish Film Institute of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, incorporating also private sponsors and partners.
The
Festival is currently one of the avant-garde film events for the
development of Galician and Spanish audiovisual products, with a
great Latin American, European and international participation.
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