“Besides, cinema is an art and an industry – and it’s always been both of those things.”įor García Besné and many others, the films also act as social, cultural and economic barometers for a changing Mexico. “These films came from the people and were loved by the people, and that makes them part of our culture,” she says. Photograph: Courtesy of the Permanencia Voluntaria archive Part of the archive is stored in Tepoztlán, where screenings are also held at Batacine. García Besné points out that the films attracted huge audiences of working-class Mexicans who adored the drama, thrills, romance and escapism they offered. Mexico is a very class-ridden country, and we’re very used to saying, ‘Well, that’s not worth much’, or, ‘That’s just rubbish.’” “It’s about getting people to see things through different eyes. What I tried to do was put these films in the proper context and explain why they were made and why people wanted to see this kind of cinema. ![]() “I’ve heard important people say that these films should have been burned. “In the beginning, the biggest challenge was the disdain for popular cinema,” says García Besné. Her Permanencia Voluntaria (Double Feature) archive, which has extended beyond the Calderón collection and now holds some 400 films, is being showcased in Madrid this month in a season at Spain’s national film archive, the Filmoteca Española.ĭespite the archive’s growing international reputation – it has restored 10 films over the past four years, and the collection is housed between the Mexican town of Tepoztlán and the UCLA film archive and the Academy film archive in Los Angeles – its genesis and survival have been far from easy. Unwilling to split up the collection – “It’s the work of a company that began in 1910 and made films until 1990 that’s 80 years of cinema history,” she says – García Besné decided to hang on to it all and to embark on a quest to rescue and reappraise Mexico’s cine popular. But they were like, ‘We’ll have that, and maybe that, but not that.’”Ī scene from Santo v the Evil Brain (1961). “I told them about this marvellous collection of films, photos and paperwork, and thought they’d all jump for joy. “I thought the best, and most obvious, thing would be to send them all to the big film institutions in Mexico,” she says. ![]() ![]() When Cinematográfíca Calderón finally closed down in 2014, García Besné found herself in her great-uncle’s huge house in Mexico City, wondering what would become of the thousands of rolls of film and the mass of documents and photographs that made up its half-forgotten legacy. Not only did her forebears own and operate 36 cinemas, they also built a film studio and ran a production company, Cinematográfica Calderón, which turned out more than 250 films over seven decades. Salvation came in the form of Viviana García Besné, a film-maker, archivist, self-described “popular film activist” and descendant of Mexico’s cinematic Calderón clan. Had they not been rescued from a dusty storehouse seven years ago, the original negatives of hundreds of Mexican movies featuring the likes of the silver-masked crime-fighting wrestler El Santo, a bikini-clad Batwoman and the Satan-worshipping Panther Women would have been lost forever.
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