The Collective of Critics of Girona loses the management of Cinema Truffaut after more than 25 years

GironaThe Hitchcockian thriller of Cinema Truffaut has reached its end. After weeks of extensions and uncertainty, the Girona City Council announced this Friday that it has finally awarded the public tender to the company Rambla de l’Art - Cambrils, which had achieved a higher score, for economic reasons, than the current project of the Col·lectiu de Crítics de Girona. Therefore, Truffaut will cease to be managed by the non-profit association that created the project and has managed it in an exemplary manner for the last 25 years. In the next fifteen business days, the critics will leave their positions and lower the cinema's blinds, awaiting the arrival of the new managers.

The final decision was made after this Friday's governing board meeting, in which Mayor Lluc Salellas and Guanyem Girona (3 votes) voted in favor of revoking the tender's outcome, while representatives from Junts and Esquerra (4 votes) opted to confirm the award to the Tarragona-based company, owned by exhibitor Toni Badimon. The split vote has created a significant government crisis, which could have political consequences in the coming weeks.

"Today was a day to start saving the historic project of the Col·lectiu de Crítics de Girona. We voted against this award because we have been working for weeks and justifying through reports that there is a general interest so that, as provided for by law, the contract is not awarded," explained the mayor, Lluc Salellas, who, in a very harsh tone against his government partners, lamented: "Unfortunately, we have not obtained the necessary political majority to move forward with this proposal." Gemma Geis and Quim Ayats, for their part, said they voted "against their will," but that this was the only legal option without "committing fraud" and accused the mayor of engaging in "pure posturing" before the citizens.

The mayor appeals to the general interest

Once the result of the public tender was made public, decided by a difference of only 4,000 euros in favor of the Cambrils company, the City Council, assuming that errors had been made in the drafting of the tender conditions, asked the Critics' Collective to accept a few months' extension while all political and legal options were explored so that the municipal cinema would continue under the same management.

The result of the April tender was met with great surprise and concern by many cinema users and by cinephiles in general, and it provoked an avalanche of expressions of support for the project, which was enjoying its best moment in terms of audience numbers. Entities such as the Catalan Federation of Cineclubs and the Catalan Association of Film Criticism and Cinematographic Writing (ACCEC) sided with the Critics' Collective, and the Catalan Film Academy launched a letter of support for Cinema Truffaut, subscribed by, among others, filmmakers such as Carla Simón, Jonás Trueba, Isaki Lacuesta, Neus Ballús, and Carlos Marques-Marcet, actors Àlex Brendemühl, Enric Auquer, and Carlos Cuevas, producers Tono Folguera and Isona Passola, and festivals L'Alternativa and D'A. "It is fundamental to understand that facilities like Truffaut cannot depend solely on economic criteria – says the letter–. Privatizing them or subjecting them to the logic of profit puts at risk everything that has been built over decades. Culture is not a luxury, it is a common good, it is a right. And it needs protected spaces to grow and reach everyone".

All these voices, added to those of authorized people from the world of culture who have submitted a formal written statement to the City Council endorsing the Collective's work, were to serve to legally justify the mayor's decision of "asset of public interest" to annul the tender. In the end, however, the councilors of Junts and Esquerra have backed down and the motion has not prospered.