Chronicle of a bicentennial encounter: cinema as memory and political communication. (On the discovery, restoration and exhibition of the film "Fiestas Centenarias" (1922), by Eduardo Rivas Ors)

Abstract

In 1922, Ecuadorian President José Luis Tamayo hired film entrepreneur Eduardo Rivas Ors to record events prepared by his government to celebrate the centenary of the Republican foundation. The work, called "Fiestas Centenarias" would be part of the almost 20 titles that, between 1910 and 1924, Rivas Ors produced in Ecuador, all of which were lost, except the aforementioned work that, almost a hundred years later, was found in the cellar of an Ecuadorian embassy, becoming the only remaining copy of his works. In the bicentenary year of the Battle of Pichincha, 2022, the discovery provokes reflections on the relationship of political communication through moving images, with memory and representations contained in historical documents and films; as well as the role of public servants in the midst of the political ups and downs of a society affected by endemic institutional weakness.

KEYWORDS: Ecuadorian cinema, history of Ecuador, cultural heritage, moving images, legal deposit.