The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, announced in an interview with EFE a project aimed at having schools fill cinemas in the morning, an initiative that aims, on the one hand, to create a cinema culture among young people and, on the other, to help exhibitors.
The Minister of Culture, who recalled that this initiative is being successfully carried out in France, has commissioned a pilot programme on which the general director of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), Ignasi Camós, is already working.
The “School and Cinema” program was implemented in the neighboring country in 1994 in primary school (from six to nine years old) and in 2022 it was extended to nursery school (between five and six years old). It consists of students attending at least three determined screenings per course, one per term, with a price of three euros per session (this year, for example, they include the recent Wallace and Gromit either The Adventures of Prince Ahmed, 1926).
This is one of the projects that the minister has in mind to bring culture closer to the entire population, to all neighborhoods and all cities.
Comprehensive Plan for Cultural Infrastructures (Pitec)
And for this, he is also preparing other important initiatives for the next general state budgets. One of them is the preparation of the Comprehensive Plan for Cultural Infrastructure in Spain (Pitec), “a mapping of all cultural infrastructures to ensure that every citizen in Spain has a theater, cinema, etc. within a radius of less than five kilometers,” he explained.
Based on this mapping of all regional, municipal and state cultural facilities, “we will direct the investments we will make next year,” he said, to break down the geographical barrier that prevents access to the arts for large sections of the population.
Regarding the economic barrier, perhaps even more fundamental, Urtasun assures that more initiatives are being studied within the framework of the budgets after the success of the cultural bonus (400 euros for those aged 18) and the senior cinema (tickets at two euros on Tuesdays for those over 65).
