Abstract

This article investigates the origins of the Film Club of the Austral University of Chile (UACh), founded in Valdivia in 1963 and recognized as the oldest continuously operating film club in the country. The study traces back to the humanist vision of its first rector, Eduardo Morales Miranda, who conceived  the university as a cultural engine for forming “spiritual elites” through the promotion of the arts and decentralization.
It highlights the background of the “Audiovisual Truck” led by Maurice van de Maele and Esther Aguilera de Silva in the late 1950s, an initiative that brought educational films to isolated rural areas and emergency camps following the 1960 earthquake. The text analyzes the foundational event of January 8, 1963, during the Summer School, where the screening of works by the French New Wave and directors such as Ingmar Bergman solidified an “art house” film program that would give birth to the University Film Society.