The history of Curtas Festival do Imaxinario is not a straight line. It is a living story, full of ellipses, plot twists, and leaps into the void. Since that distant year of 1973, our awards record has borne witness to the evolution of cinema. But also to the festival’s own struggle to survive the elements and the passage of time.
If, while diving into this archive, you encounter silences or dates without data, it is not the result of forgetfulness. They are the scars of a festival that had to rebuild itself in order to become what it is today.
From amateur passion to the international stage
It all began with seven pioneers. In 1973, a group of members of the Casino of Vilagarcía decided that their experiments in Super-8 and 16mm deserved to be seen. What started as a private screening for friends soon exceeded all expectations. Just three years later, it was already receiving works from all over Galicia. In 1980, it opened to Spain, and barely three years after that, it made the leap onto the international stage.
Before becoming established figures, names that today define fantasy cinema, animation, and Spanish and Galician auteur film passed through our screens. This list proves that the talent of figures such as Rodrigo Cortés, Caye Casas, Javier Fesser, Álex Pastor, Enrique Gato, Pedro Solís, Koldo Serra, Dani de la Torre, Sam Ortí, Haritz Zubillaga, Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, Olga Osorio, Chano Piñeiro, Fernando Cortizo, Mario Iglesias, and Juan Pinzás found one of its earliest showcases here.
An uninterrupted stronghold among the 10 oldest in Spain
Being born in 1973 grants a special status. This founding date makes Curtas the oldest film festival in Galicia. It also places it, by its own merit, among the ten oldest film festivals in all of Spain. It shares a generation with institutions such as Sitges, Huesca, or the Gijón Film Festival.
But what truly sets our history apart is not just longevity, but perseverance. At Curtas, we have never stopped. While other major events suffered interruptions over the decades or were forced into online formats during global crises, Vilagarcía stood firm. A clear example of this resistance was the year 2020. In a fearful and confined world, Curtas was one of the few festivals that did not give up on physical gatherings, holding an entirely in-person edition. Because for us, cinema is not just content; it is a collective experience that must be defended in the theater, against all odds.
A rarity on the global map
On an international level, this trajectory gives us a singular profile. It is a story in two phases. While our founding in 1973 makes us contemporaries of the festivals’ “Golden Generation,” we even predate events such as Toronto or Sundance. Our specialization is the result of a conscious evolution that began in 2015.
This positions us as a unique case on the circuit. We combine the institutional solidity of a festival with over 50 years of uninterrupted life—something almost unheard of among festivals born from the associative sphere—with the freshness of a project fully devoted to fantasy cinema. We are not just a genre festival; we are a piece of film history that has adapted to the times and found its true home in the realm of the imaginary.
The submerged memory
However, our most distant past literally rests underwater. During the decades in which the festival grew under the umbrella of the Liceo Casino, a flood in the institution’s storage facilities destroyed much of the historical archive. Minutes, photographs, and lists of award winners were lost in that disaster. What you will read next for the earliest decades is the result of documentary archaeology, reconstructed thanks to period press coverage and the oral memory of those who were there.
For this reason, we would like to express our special thanks to La Voz de Galicia, Rafael Sabugueiro, Arousa TV, O Faiado da Memoria, Vitor Mejuto, Pablo Jueguen, Benjamín Rey, and to all those who have provided us with material to recover this legacy.
2015: The rebirth of the Imaxinario
The recent history of the festival is written from a turning point. In 2014, despite the delicate economic situation of the original organizing entity, the festival managed to stay afloat. It fulfilled its competitive commitment, demonstrating an unbreakable will not to turn off the screens. However, that effort of resistance marked the end of a cycle and revealed the need for deep transformation.
In 2015, faced with the real risk of disappearance, the direction was entrusted to Luis M. Rosales (then director of Nocturna Madrid). The task was titanic: to save the legacy and transform the old Curtas Film Fest into a 21st-century event. To secure its future, a new independent association was created, replacing the Liceo Casino in management and professionalizing every area of the festival.
Under this new phase, the festival definitively embraced its true nature. Feature films were incorporated and, in 2020, what was already a reality became official: total dedication to the culture of fantasy cinema under the brand Curtas Festival do Imaxinario. Since that rebirth, every award and every mention has been recorded with the meticulous care that such a legacy deserves—a legacy we will never allow to be lost again.
Welcome to our legacy.