The activity is part of the program for evaluating audiovisual heritage archives and developing film clubs of the Arts, Cultures and Heritage Network.

With around 20 attendees, the first 2019 initiative of the Network of State Universities of Chile was carried out in the Coquimbo Region. This is the “Cinema Clubs Self-Training” workshop, intended to provide tools to teachers, cultural managers, social leaders, students and others, for the creation of civil associations aimed at self-training and educational uses of cinema, in state universities.

This workshop was given by the coordinator of Cineclub Sala Sazié of the University of Chile, Valentina Ávila, as part of the program for the assessment of audiovisual heritage archives and the development of film clubs of the Arts, Cultures and Heritage Network, which is made up of three stages: the first of them is to carry out exhibition and practical workshops, with the aim of beginning to generate film club spaces in universities, to value the training of audiences and the appreciation of Chilean audiovisual heritage.

In this regard, Valentina Ávila commented that “it is super valuable that these initiatives are being taken because it has to do with a resignification of cinema itself and of the arts in general and culture. In this case we are proposing a work model that is educational, that is not commercial, that does not seek profit and what better than this type of activities being developed within the state universities of Chile."

He also highlighted that “in this workshop we focus on methodological work, because many times there is desire and enthusiasm, but people do not have the tools to be able to develop that, and in that sense people were very restless in the workshop. I see that many of them have the initiative to create film clubs and that in some way they have been doing it before and that is super positive because it is a purely educational activity with cinema.”

For Marcia Sepúlveda, who attended the workshop, this initiative deserves “thanks because it is one of the few times that these topics that are almost always discussed in Santiago are brought to the regions, it was a great opportunity. The majority of the people who came had the intention of being able to start with the formation of a film club in the area, so everything that is theoretical training is going to be useful to us and clearly on this occasion it was the starting point for many people to start. to form these film clubs. Bonds were formed, the bond is evident, so I think it will be a very good opportunity to live the cinema experience here in the area.”

These workshops seek to be a first real contribution to the implementation and strengthening of film clubs in the universities attached to Cuech, starting from the basis that, as public higher education institutions, the generation of training and reflection spaces open to the community, constitutes integral part of its mission. These workshops will generate records and inputs that will feed the publication Manual de Cineclubismo, the second milestone of the program, and whose launch is expected to take place in 2019.