Tomàs Mallol (Sant Pere Pescador, 1923) has always been a cinema enthusiast. The itinerant cinema projections, which came to his village in his chidhood, made a profound impression on him, that became a passion for everything related to the cinematographic world. Most of all he was intereted in the technical side (the optics, the lighting, the putting together of the films...), up to the point when only eight years old, he built his first projector, with which he entertained his friends and family. This projector can be seen in the collection.

After the Civil War, he qualified as an industrial engineer and went to live in Barcelona. Here he undertook various jobs, until he finally became a photographer and publicist, as which he developed his professional career.

Married with two daughters, for many years he lived inbetween Barcelona and Torroella de Fluvià (Alt Empordà). During this time, through the photography association of the Catalan Excursion Centre, he made contact with various people that shared his interest in photography and amateur cinema.

El 1956, Tomàs Mallol realitzà la seva primera pel·lícula com a cineasta amateur, El pastor de Can Sopa, i una primera i única incursió en el cinema professional com a director de fotografia, en la coproducció italoespanyola Su propio destino. Abandonà el cinema professional per les dependències i servituds que comportava, que escapaven als criteris artístics de la pel·lícula, i va decidir continuar com a cineasta amateur fundant la UCA, Unió de Cineastes Amateurs, amb seu a Barcelona.

In the twenty years up to 1977, Tomàs Mallol made 31 short films, which won various international amateur cinema awards. His films are characterised by his attention to detail, their slow pace and in particular, for their obsession with space and time. L’Empordà (1957), Mástiles (1963), Instante (1967), Daguerre i jo (1969), Poca cosa sabem (1972), Negre i Vermell (1973) o Homenatge (1975) are some of his most important works.

In the middle of the nineteen sixties, at the same time and as a consequence of his activities as an amateur film maker, he collected various cine film pieces of equipment, initially without considering becoming a collector. Some years later, after reading the book La Arqueologia del Cine, by C.W. Ceram, he decided to focus the collection towards cinema archaeology, while at the same time continuing his interest in amateur cinema equipment and children’s cinema. Tomàs Mallol started a detailed study and research iproject nto the objects that were brought to him, which was to last over 30 years, and form a collection of precinema objects and pieces of equipment from the early years of the cinema.

Acquired by the Ajuntament (Girona Town Hall) in January 1994 as the basis of the Museum of the Cinema - Tomàs Mallol Collection, it is recognised as the most important collection of precinema and cinema equipment in Spain and one of the most outstanding in Europe.

The Tomàs Mallol Collection is made up of about 20.000 pieces. Apart from almost 8000 objects, apparatuses and precinematographic and early cinema accessories, there are nearly 10,000 fixed image documents (photographs, posters, prints, drawings and paintings), 800 films of all types and a library of over 700 books and magazines. The collection acts as a background to the period from the mid 17th. Century up to 1970. The majority of it is dated between the second half of the 18th. and the early 20th century.

One of the main characteristics of the Tomàs Mallol Collection is the systematic way in which the acquired pieces were treated, leaving to one side any personal or arbitrary tendencies. The fundamental idea was to collect all items that relate to the prehistory and the early years of the cinema. In other words, all the objects that explain how images were represented before the advent of the cinema and what was the technical process that led to the invention of cinematography in 1895.