About the Project
The "Alonso Collection," owned by the Archivo Nacional de la Imagen y la Palabra (SODRE), consists of forty-five rolls of nitrate film, shot in a documentary style throughout the countryside of Uruguay between 1920 and 1940. The materials, located in the vaults of Cinemateca Uruguaya (Uruguayan Cinematheque), have only been partially preserved and studied. The project team from Cine Casero have created a detailed inventory, technical assessment, and full collection report. This work prepares the film reels for future digitization.
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El principal objetivo del proyecto es la puesta en valor de los materiales en soporte nitrato de la Colección Carlos Alonso. Con esto realizar un aporte a la conservación y visibilización de una parte fundamental de nuestro patrimonio fílmico, hasta ahora casi desconocida, al igual que su realizador. Asimismo llamar la atención sobre sus condiciones actuales y sensibilizar a las organizaciones involucradas ante los riesgos perentorios, así como sugerir medidas a tomar de cara a mejorar su situación de conservación. Se trata de la Colección más numerosa, temprana y abarcativa en términos territoriales del país en clave documental.
Mediante la inspección física, evaluamos el estado de conservación de las películas y desarrollamos un plan de jerarquización de prioridades para su conservación, en vistas de una posible digitalización. De la inspección, además, se obtuvo un inventario de existencias actualizado que comprende las 40 latas que efectivamente pertenecen a la Colección y que se encuentran almacenadas en Cinemateca Uruguaya.
Project Leads
- Felipe Bellocq, Cine Casero
- Macarena Fernández, Cine Casero
- Carolina Curti, Cine Casero
- Julieta Keldjian, Cine Casero
Host Institution
Universidad Católica del Uruguay
More Information
Collection Details
The Alonso Collection, donated by filmmaker Carlos Alonso - a well-known director in Uruguay from the early 20th century - to the Archivo Nacional de la Imagen y la Palabra, captures lost scenery of the Uruguayan countryside. Alonso was renowned in the early years of cinema, notably for his silent film El pequeño héroe del Arroyo de Oro (The Little Hero of Arroyo de Oro, 1929), which is considered to be a pioneering work of Uruguayan cinema.
Throughout the 1920’s to the 1940’s, Alonso collected a series of film shots that were to be produced in a documentary-styled piece on Uruguay’s physical development. The materials consist of nitrate film shot throughout different provinces, including Tacuarembó, Flores, Artigas, Soriano, Colonia, Durazno, Treinta y Tres, Río Negro and Rivera. After a recent investigation, the project team of Cine Casero has strongly suspected that the film reels are part of an attempted film series called El Gran Film del Uruguay (The Great Film of Uruguay), which aimed to cover the thriving modernity throughout Uruguay's provinces.
The state of the current countryside is completely altered, primarily due to modernization and centralization of Montevideo as a social and political hegemonic capital. And unfortunately, there is a lack of visual documentation of Uruguay's rural regions before the modern changes. Cine Casero’s project with MEAP focuses on preserving the historic state of the Uruguayan countryside and making accessible Alonso’s ambitious film series by cataloguing the collection.
This film series is of significant value to not just preserving the physical structures of historic Uruguay, but also to the country’s national identity and gradual changes brought on by industrialization and modernization. Film as a media is a useful tool in maintaining memory, and this collection will allow users in Uruguay and beyond to explore places and activities that have not been seen by generations.
