The presentation was also attended by the president of the Casino, Manuel Sánchez Luengo, the CEO of the Valencian publishing house Sargantana, Paz Navarro, the coach of Valencia FC Femenino, Germán Belda and the film doctor, Pau Gómez. ‘A la Luz de la Luna. Historias de un cine ambulante’ is the title of the book with which Yuri Aguilar pays tribute to summer film screenings and which has been presented at the Casino de Agricultura. With a cover by the great illustrator David van der Veen and a prologue by Áurea Ortiz Villeta, professor of film history and programming technician at the Filmoteca, the book analyses, from different perspectives, what this tradition, so deeply rooted in so many towns and cities in Spain, means and what it has meant. The first book to be written in Spain on this subject has been published by the Grupo Editorial Sargantana, through its imprint NPQ Editores.

The presentation began with a welcome from the president of the Valencian Society of Agriculture and Sports, Manuel Sánchez Luengo, followed by an introduction to the book by the CEO of the Valencian publishing house Sargantana and president of the Association of Young Entrepreneurs, Paz Navarro. Afterwards, Valencia FC Femenino coach Germán Belda gave a biographical sketch of the author, who then engaged in a dialogue with Pau Gómez, Doctor of Cinema and director of the ‘Antonio Ferrandis’ Film Festival in Paterna. The presentation ended with a discussion with the packed audience.

Yuri Aguilar was born and grew up among cinema projectors and film cans. From an early age, he accompanied his father to his father’s mobile screenings, and at the age of sixteen he began working in summer cinemas and cultural centres as a booth operator. “Where does this love of putting a screen in the middle of a square and sharing the experience with friends and neighbours come from? How is a summer cinema screening organised? What are the problems faced by a professional mobile cinema team? In this book, which is partly autobiographical, I try to answer all these questions by telling a hitherto unknown story of cinema,” he explains.

‘A la Luz de la Luna’ will prove to be an original bet because it is the first time that someone writes about the travelling cinema, but not only that, but also, the book has real anecdotes with which “many will feel identified”, Aguilar points out because “the open-air cinema is in the collective imagination of all Valencians”. It is a work in which we will also discover how the summer cinema was born, what logistics were needed to make a travelling cinema or how the technological transition affected it, among many other questions.

Yuri Aguilar, who graduated in Political Science and Administration in 2013, is the head of the family business Aguilar Cinema, which brings cinema to towns and squares throughout the Valencian Community. He has worked at À Punt Ràdio, Radio Nacional de España and various film libraries in film heritage recovery tasks. He teaches film history at the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture. In 2009 he received the Premi Tirant Especial and in 2015 the Bronze Medal of the Real Sociedad Valenciana de Agricultura y Deportes, both for his contribution to the dissemination of film heritage in Valencian society. In 2019, together with Miguel Poyatos, he published La historia de España en 50 tuits (Ed. Martínez Roca).

Report by ‘24/7 Valencia’ team

Article copyright ‘24/7 Valencia’