The Spanish Film Library is an organisation entrusted with preserving the Spanish film heritage. It is an Office of the Film and Audio-visual Arts Institute. Its mission is to recover, research and conserve the film heritage of Spain and promote awareness of it. The functions of the Spanish Film Library are defined by the Royal Decree 7/1997, of 10 January.
The collection of films is the core activity of the Spanish Film Library and its raison d'être. The International Film Archives Federation (FIAF), of which the Spanish Film Library has been a member of since 1956, grants these institutions the title of historical archives. Its unique position comes from the fact that it is also a living archive, responsible for gathering and preserving film documents that are currently being produced, guaranteeing their conservation and ensuring their promotion, for research as well as for information purposes. It also researches, retrieves and restores the Spanish film heritage.
The Spanish Film Library processes and analyses the film collections and complements them with other documents, books, magazines, posters, photos, "press-books", etc., which constitute its library and graphic archive. Moreover, it has an important collection of sound recordings, and an interesting selection of objects related to the history of cinema and pre-cinema: cameras, magic lanterns, zootropes, daguerreotypes, tintypes, Chinese shadow lanterns, projectors, laboratory material and other pieces ranging from the 17th century to the present day.