Benidorm screens this Friday the two promotional films from the 70s and 80s recovered by the Valencian Archive

Benidorm City Council, with the help of Filmoteca Valenciana, will screen this Friday, September 29, at 7:00 p.m. in the assembly hall two 16 and 35-millimeter films promoting the city dating from the 70s and 80s. last century recovered by the Municipal Archive and by the autonomous body. A screening that will be accompanied by the exhibition of private films from 1920-1970 that are preserved in the Film Library and that "completes the commemoration of World Tourism Day", as the mayor, Toni, has announced today. Perez.

The mayor has highlighted that "Benidorm is Tourism and has been for many decades, something that is well illustrated by the films that will be shown at this event and through which we will be able to see the evolution of the destination and also of the ways of promoting it from the 70s onwards, at which time audiovisuals began to become popular and spread.”

This event, titled 'World Tourism Day 2023. Images Rescued and to be rescued' will feature the participation of a technician from Filmoteca Valenciana who will explain how the two films were recovered from the Municipal Archive and how the entity works with the material sent to it by individuals. and institutions. Likewise, from the Town Hall, there will be a portrait of the tourist evolution of Benidorm from the 1920s to the mid-1980s, a period that will be displayed during the event.

The mayor recalled that “when these films were recovered from the Archive, at the beginning of 2021, we already stated that we wanted to make their content known, and what better time than to do so coinciding with World Tourism Day since these are promotional videos of Our city".

The first of the films, 16 Millimeters, titled 'Next Year Benidorm', was filmed and produced 47 years ago. A good part of the team in charge of the promotional video were professionals from the city. Throughout just over 17 minutes, some of the primary tourist resources that emerged in Benidorm in the 70s, became popular, or were still in vogue at that time are exhibited. "We talk, for example, about Cable Sky, the first party rooms and discos, or the legendary Limón Express, as complements to our beaches and our accommodation offer and our natural environment," he noted.

Regarding the second film, 'Benidorm', "it is unknown exactly what year it was filmed, but we do know that it had to be from 1985 since it includes images of Aqualandia water park." This film, measuring 35 millimeters and just over 7 minutes, “collects new milestones in the city's urban scene that will materialize in the following years, such as  Parque de l'Aigüera, and shows new tourist resources linked to nightlife and daytime and with family, or our holidays.”

Aside from both promotional events, the result of contact and collaboration with the Valencian Film Library, "in this event you will be able to see images that are part of its audiovisual collection that have never been shown in Benidorm before and that have our city as the protagonist." “We are talking – he detailed – about films that have arrived at the Filmoteca from the hands of individuals, mainly vacationers from that first tourist Benidorm, and that will allow us to rescue what that town of just over 3,000 inhabitants was like in the 1920s last century and see it in motion.”

Toni Pérez has assured that “this is a unique opportunity to visit a Benidorm that several generations knew in first person and are part of our memory, or to discover the past of a destination that continues to be pioneering and that continues to fascinate every year millions of people".