Some years ago, the Filmoteca Española acquired the collection of Antonino Sagarmínaga, a native of Bilbao and a passionate collector of optical devices, who is today considered one of the pioneers of the cinema in Spain. In 1883 Sagarmínaga bought a magic lantern, with more than a hundred slides, with which for some years he devised shows for the cultural circle “El Sitio”.
In October 1897, a year or so after the arrival of the cinema in Spain, Sagarmínaga began to take an interest in the cinema, buying projectors and film made by Joly-Normandin. These used a format which became extinct after the Charity Bazaar Fire, and Sagarmínaga had only managed to acquire a score of films in this format. Probably in 1899, given the impossibility of obtaining further Joly-Normandin films, he bought a new projector, this time an Edison model, for which by 1906 he had acquired more than a hundred films, the majority of them of French origin. (These included films by Pathé, Parnaland, Lumière, Méliès, Baron, and the French offices of Warwick, Raleigh and Robert.) The films were found already made up in rolls (of an average of 150 metres) in cans, some marked with a system of letters, and also containing manuscript notes with indications for programming. In the programme we are presenting, the films will be shown in the same montage adopted at the time by Antonino Sagarmínaga. All the films have been restored in the Filmoteca Española, with duplicate negatives made in the Iskra and Fotofilm Deluxe laboratories and in the laboratory of the Filmoteca Española itself.

Camille Blot-Wellens, Filmoteca Española