
José Val del Omar
1904 - 1982Fuego en Castilla (Tactilvisión del páramo del espanto)
José Val del Omar
A short, experimental documentary featuring sculptures by Alonso de Berruguete and Juan de Juni. Shot within the Valladolid National Museum, the film is an excercise in what Val de Omar called "Tactile vision".
Fire in Castilla (Tactilvision from the Moor of the Fright)
Tríptico Elemental de España
José Val del Omar
Arturo Baltar, José Val del Omar
Feature film composed of three of the main short films by the experimental Spanish director Jose Val del Omar. Composed of Acariño galaico (De barro), released in 1995, Fuego en Castilla (Tactilvisión del páramo del espanto), a short film premiered at Cannes in 1961 that won a technical award at the French festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or and finally Aguaespejo granadino, released in 1955.
Tríptico Elemental de España
Acariño galaico (de barro)
José Val del Omar
Ezequiel Mendez, Arturo Baltar
This film was reconstructed and completed in 1995 by Javier Codesal for the Filmoteca de Andalucia, from the montage and the sound that Val del Omar had outlined before his death, after having returned to a project abandoned twenty years before with the incorporation of significant additions (above all in the soundtrack). Val del Omar's notes show that, as he typically did, he had other alternative titles in mind, such as "Acariño de la Terra Meiga" (Caress of the Magic Land), "Acariño a nosa terra" (Caress of Our Land), or "Barro de ánimas" (Clay of Souls), and that in the final phase of the unfinished project he wanted to add a second sound channel – following the diaphonic principle, and using electro-acoustic techniques – consisting of ambient material that he intended to record at the first screenings of the film in the very places and to the very people that were its origin: its "clay".
Galician Caress (of Clay)
Fiestas cristianas, fiestas profanas
José Val del Omar
In 1934, the Spanish filmmaker José Val del Omar traveled to the region of Murcia, where he documented the celebration of several popular festivals, both religious and secular, as part of his contribution to the itinerant educational program promoted by the Government of the Second Republic.
Christian Feasts, Secular Feasts
Vibración de Granada
José Val del Omar
This is a short film that, although a documentary in appearance, has very little to do with the generic conventions of that form. It would seem, then, that what we have here is the embryo of what he was subsequently to call the "elementary": an abstract or lyrical modality in the perception and exposition of the real.
Vibration of Granada
Variaciones sobre una granada
José Val del Omar
This short reel is a kind of cinematographic still-life: on the basis of an arrangement of pomegranates, the fruit emblematic of Granada, it combines animation (single-frame or stop-motion cinematography) and picto-luminic techniques which in turn draw on a whole battery of resources.
Variations on a Pomegranate