Canal+: on cinema's trail
Canal +: 'On cinema´s trail'
26th, April 2007
It was the late nineties. The Department of Special Programs for Canal+ decided to devote a series of programs to great filmmakers and cinematographic movements. But it was not the little, more or less careful reports about Coppola, the Nouvelle Vague, or Woody Allen, one of those that trod the same ground as always. The challenge was to go one step further. This was how unexpectedly detailed studies were carried out, studies that pointed to the very essence of the main characters, that tried to discover the invisible links between the different films by great master, the ultimate meaning of his or her work. They were, to get to the point, the most rigorous documentaries on film that had ever been made in Spain.
Of course, there were several sources of inspiration. But it is crucial to note the unequalled work that, in the now far off decade of the eighties, was done by the legendary program on Channel 2 Fila 7, the head of which was Manuel Pérez Estremera, then Director of Canal+'s own Film and Production Department and the one ultimately in charge of the documentaries that were shown in that series.
Though one cannot speak purely of a stable company, it is true that there are several names that are repeated time and again, some that are very well-known by the average fan. Such people have passed through those documentary ranks such as Tony Partearroyo, Alfonso Rivera, Nuria Vidal, Alvaro del Amo, Carlos F. Heredero, Esteve Riambau, Santiago Aguilar, Felipe Vega, Sergi Sánchez and yours truly… almost always in collaboration with home-grown directors such as Manuel Palacios, Carlos Rodríguez, Pite Piñas and Jorge Ortiz de Landázuri, perhaps less popular but very prestigious in the world of television.
More proof of the indubitable interest in those documentaries? Perhaps their frequent programming at festivals, the numerous praising reviews in the TV press, and the discoveries by film-buffs that they made accessible for the average fan: without going further, the discovery of previously unreleased material in Spain by Welles or Hitchcock, the loves and fears of Woody Allen, the revelations about Coppola’s career directions and his obsession for certain tales (could anyone have imagined that Apocalypse Now and The Wizard of Oz tell the same story?)…
After seeing those documentaries, the great names in cinema were never the same again. This is the theme of the Special Documentaries of Canal+: the unsuspected face of cinema.
Juan Francia
Journalist and Film Writer