Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken

The Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken is Argentina's principal public film museum, dedicated to the preservation, research, and dissemination of Argentine cinema. Located in the La Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires, it was established on October 1, 1971, from the private film collection of Pablo Cristian Ducrós Hicken, an Argentine essayist, journalist, and filmmaker. The museum holds the most important public film collection in the country and operates under the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires. Its mission, defined in the founding act, centers on exhibiting, preserving, and expanding heritage related to Argentine cinema.

The museum was created on October 1, 1971, when Jacinta Vicente de Ducrós Hicken donated her late husband's film collection to the city. Her sole condition was that the institution bear his name, a designation it formally adopted on May 23, 1975. The founding objectives have remained constant: to exhibit, preserve, and enlarge the heritage of Argentine cinema. The first director, critic and researcher Jorge Miguel Couselo, served from February 1972 to May 1976. During the military dictatorship, Rolando Fustiñana (Roland), founder of the Cinemateca Argentina, directed the museum until July 1981. Subsequent directors included filmmaker Guillermo Fernández Jurado, researcher José María Poirier Lalanne, and documentarian David Blaustein. Since 2008, the museum has been led by researcher and audiovisual preservation specialist Paula Félix-Didier. The institution has relocated six times since its founding, occupying the Teatro General San Martín, the former Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, the Centro Cultural Recoleta, the Sarmiento building at 2500, Defensa 1220 in San Telmo, and the Piccaluga building at Feijóo 525. It arrived at its current La Boca location on August 1, 2011.

The museum's holdings extend far beyond film reels to encompass the full material culture of Argentine cinema. The cinematheque contains approximately 90,000 film reels in various formats and supports, spanning from the origins of silent film to contemporary productions. The core collection includes 65,000 film rolls in 16mm and 35mm formats. A significant acquisition is the newsreel archive of television station Canal 9, comprising 12,000 film rolls of the weekly Sucesos Argentinos covering 40 years from 1938, plus similar quantities of news programs EPA, Noticiario Panamericano, and Nuevediario. The Manuel Peña Rodríguez collection has enabled the rescue of several silent films previously believed lost. The museum also maintains a library, videotheque, and newspaper archive open to the public. Its equipment holdings number over 400 apparatuses, including cameras, projectors, moviolas, and viewers. The poster collection contains 3,000 original Argentine film posters, while design materials include 360 sketches of scenery and costumes. Costume holdings comprise 400 pieces used in Argentine films, and the photographic archive contains approximately 60,000 images of films and personalities.

Among the museum's most significant individual items are an original Lumière camera and the Pathé camera used by Mario Gallo in 1909 to film La revolución de Mayo, considered the first professional production of Argentine cinema. The museum also holds the original score of La dama duende (1945), signed by its composer Julián Bautista. The Peña Rodríguez collection yielded a major discovery in 2008: a nearly complete 16mm copy of Fritz Lang's Metropolis containing 26 minutes previously considered lost, which contributed to the 2010 reconstructed version. The museum preserves costumes from films by director María Luisa Bemberg, including the set design for Yo, la peor de todas, as well as awards such as the Golden Bear won by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson at the Berlin International Film Festival. Other notable collections include those of set designer Gori Muñoz, poster artist Orlando Venturi, and critics Domingo Di Núbila and Jorge Miguel Couselo. Since 1973, the museum has held the annual Noche de Homenaje al Cine Argentino, honoring major figures in national cinema with a replica of the Pathé camera used by Gallo. In 1999, the museum conducted a survey of 100 researchers and critics to determine the most important films in Argentine history, evaluating 851 feature films.

The museum's primary venue is located at Agustín R. Caffarena 51 in La Boca, in a historic building constructed in 1916 for the Compañía Ítalo Argentina de Electricidad (CIAE), one of the city's former electricity distribution companies. The building, featuring exposed brick in a Lombard Romanesque style, was originally built to house managerial staff of the company. It was inaugurated as the museum's headquarters in June 2011 after renovation. The space includes exhibition halls for permanent and temporary displays, a 70-seat auditorium equipped for both analog and digital projection, and an educational area for workshops and seminars. The permanent exhibition is titled "Soñar, soñar." In 2013, an additional administrative and technical headquarters was established at Ministro Brin 615, located a few blocks away. This second site houses the film material deposits, technical areas for film conservation, and cataloging facilities for scripts and photographs.

The Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken operates two venues in Buenos Aires' La Boca neighborhood, both accessible to the public. The main exhibition headquarters at Caffarena 51 contains the museum's public-facing functions: galleries, the 70-seat auditorium, and educational spaces. The archive and research facilities at Ministro Brin 615 contain the library, videotheque, and newspaper library, which are open to the public, alongside the conservation and cataloging departments. The museum is owned and operated by the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires. Its current role encompasses rescue, preservation, research, and dissemination of Argentine audiovisual heritage. Regular programming includes film cycles, exhibitions, courses, and workshops. The museum maintains exchange programs with archives and museums internationally, and supports research and teaching. It also programs Argentine films at institutions throughout the country and at international festivals, including the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI). The official website is http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/museodelcine.