22/10/2010

Today, before the Council of Ministers, Culture Minister Ángeles González Sinde will officially announce Ignasi Guardans’s dismissal as ICAA director general. No official reasons have been given for this decision, which has taken almost the whole sector by surprise, although everything seems to point to personal disagreements. His successor in the role will be Carlos Cuadros, until now head of the Film Academy.

Guardans’s strong personality (see interview) and reforming spirit earned him many opponents within a sector that has resisted change for years. Since he took over the highest post at the Spanish film industry’s main public institution in April 2009 (see news), there has been an endless succession of controversies. The most talked-about was, without doubt, the suspension of film funding as a result of opposition from the Filmmakers Against the Order collective (see news).

There is no doubt that the measures adopted by the ICAA during Guardans’s mandate, aimed at encouraging the production of fewer films but with greater commercial potential both in Spain and abroad, as well as improving Spanish cinema’s image, sought to solve some of the sector’s major problems, such as the excessive number of productions that don’t receive sufficient visibility.

Proof that this was the right approach comes from the support of Producers Federation FAPAE, whose president, Pedro Pérez, expressed regret at Guardans’s departure for "he was on the right track" and he described him as a “wonderful director general of the ICAA", in a statement to EFE press agency.

(Translated from Spanish)