Juan David Latorre
Next Thursday 29th at 7 p.m., Casa Mediterráneo brings the 20/21 season of activities to an end with a session of its Mediterranean Cineclub, which analyses and previews the upcoming films, with a Mediterranean stamp in their location, recording, production or direction, which will reach the big and small screens in the coming months.
To do so, the film populariser Luis López Belda selects the most outstanding Mediterranean film premieres this summer in cinemas and on television platforms, in collaboration with Flavia Bernardez.
The Mediterranean Sea has in the city of Alicante its greatest cultural expression of public diplomacy, Casa Mediterráneo, and its director Héctor Salvador Ferricuyo at its head, whose main objective is to promote mutual knowledge and rapprochement between Spain and the rest of the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean basin, in areas as diverse as international relations, culture, the economy, climate change, gender equality and scientific and technological innovation.
Founded in 2009, Casa Mediterráneo is a public consortium made up of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation (MAUEC), the Generalitat Valenciana, Alicante City Council, Benidorm City Council and Alicante Provincial Council, and has its headquarters in the Old Benalúa Station in Alicante, a historic building inaugurated in 1887 as a railway station, the starting point of the Alicante-Murcia railway line due to its proximity to the port of Alicante.
Despite the restrictions due to Covid-19 and always in strict compliance with the laws, both national and regional, during last year a total of 350 activities were held, “which showed, as stated in its 2020 Report, its strong commitment to fulfilling the objectives and purposes for which it was created: to serve as a bridge for mutual understanding between Spain and the other countries of the Euro-Mediterranean area”. And this year 2021 the number of cultural events has increased, with an average of three or four each week.
The main fields in which Casa Mediterráneo has developed its activities have been led by international relations, with the meeting of EU ambassadors, the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona, the More Europe in the Mediterranean Forum, as well as the organisation of events on geo-strategy, conferences and meetings with Mediterranean countries. The main themes of its cultural events have also been the economy, the environment, women, culture (literature, poetry, performing and plastic arts, history, music, cinema club, photography and exhibitions). Gastronomy, current affairs and communication, together with guided tours of the Casa’s headquarters have also played an important role during this period.
And during this year 2021 the cultural offer of Casa Mediterráneo has continued to grow and become even more firmly established among the indispensable diplomatic and cultural entities of the Spanish territory. Book presentations, film screenings, cultural activities (exhibitions, debates, conferences and round tables of political, social, economic, psychological, environmental and historical nature or poetry readings) and, of course, the concerts that every week have enlivened the weekends of the province and the whole Valencian Community.
It has also been very important the visit of politicians, both national (ministers of the Spanish Government) and international (European Parliament or National United Nations, for example), as well as prestigious journalists who have dealt with topics always related to geostrategy and the Mediterranean Sea and its environment. Equally important has been the role of activities in favour of gender equality and LGTBI rights.
