The Spanish church in Cardona used by Orson Welles as a filming location for his masterpiece Chimes at Midnight will be honored by the European Film Academy this fall.
Chimes at Midnight, which recently underwent a restoration, was Welles’ personal favorite. When it premiered at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, it won the 20th Anniversary Prize and the Technical Grand Prize. (Criterion Collection will release Chimes at Midnight on DVD and Blu-ray in the U.S. on August 30.)
Filming in Spain lasted nine months, and only 15 days were spent in Cardona. Yet, 30 minutes of the final cut were shot there, containing some of the most emblematic locations: The castle of King Henry IV, the castle of his rival Henry Percy and the cathedral where Prince Hal is crowned king and rejects Falstaff.
It is for this reason that the European Film Academy will designate Cardona church in the center of Catalonia a “Treasure of European Film Culture.”
In October 1964, the village of 7,000 inhabitants welcomed actors John Gielgud, Keith Baxter, Marina Vlady, Norman Rodway, Fernando Rey and Welles himself. There are still many who remember those two weeks. The film was edited by the Catalan Elena Jaumandreu, then 29 years old, and Fred Muller, who also resides in Catalonia.
During a ceremony on October 22, held in cooperation with the Catalan Film Academy, Cardona Town Council, the Catalan Cultural Heritage Agency and the Filmoteca de Catalunya a special “Treasure of European Film Culture” emblem will be inaugurated at the location.
On the occasion of this designation, Cardona will host the Autumn EFA Board Meeting, chaired by Polish director Agnieszka Holland, at the Parador de Cardona, close to the church.
With this title, the European Film Academy wishes to raise public awareness for places of a symbolic nature for European cinema, places of historical value that need to be maintained and protected not just now but also for generations to come.
The Collegiate Church of Sant Vicenç is the eighth location to be awarded by the European Film Academy.
The first seven institutions that were adopted to be part of the “Treasures of European Film Culture” list were:
- The Eisenstein Memorial Centre in Moscow
- The House of the brothers Lumière in Lyon
- The Bergman Center in Faro
- The World of Tonino Guerra in Pennabilli
- The Potemkin Stairs in Odessa
- The Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel
- The Sergei Parajanov Museum in Yerevan
The list of Treasures of European Film Culture will continue to be added to over the years to include both film institutions and places that can be visited such as the Collegiate Church of Sant Vicenç.
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