A group of Spanish industry vets have joined to launch an innovative new project to send little-seen films out to all corners of Spain.

Launching with an initial first-year budget of around Euros 240,000 largely from the pockets of its six founders, the Club del Cine will work as a kind of "travelling filmhouse" to distribute mostly auteur and Spanish titles, as well as some international classics. Films will be subtitled rather than dubbed, the latter being standard practice in Spain.

Carmen Vega, a video producer responsible for the original idea, explains that the Club will function as a sub-distributor, negotiating rights from local or international distributors on a film-by-film basis. Similarly, the Club negotiated individually with exhibitors across Spain for screen time. Vega says private sponsors are being sought.

The first year's cycle of 11 packages of four films each will screen in 27 theaters, where films will show on multiple screens one weekday per week. Among the films included in the first cycle are classic titles like Gilda and The Third Man, and more recent fare such as Boogie Nights, Love's A Bitch (Amores Perros), Secret Ballot (Raye Makhfi), Memento and The Road Home (Wo De Fu Qin Mu Qin).

Co-founders include writer-producer-distributor Juan Jose Daza, writer-producer Marco Llamas, lawyer Lorena de Santos, and Jesus Diaz and Daniel Gallejones, owners of specialized distributor Diorama. Many members of Spain's film community have expressed their support.