Culture

DocsBarcelona International Festival celebrates its 20th Edition between May 18th and May 28th. The festival now lasts ten days instead of five, so that this year’s edition can include a record 90 documentaries. One of the most outstanding films is the Catalan-German production ‘Hacking Justice’ which tells the story of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who fought to prove the innocence of ‘Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange. DocsBarcelona received over 500 projects from 65 different countries worldwide, a figure which represents a 14% increase in the number of submissions in comparison to last year, consolidating the festival at an international scale.

'RCR' Arquitectes, a studio based in the small village of Olot, 100 kilometres north of Barcelona, has been awarded the 2017 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The three locally-based architects, Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta are the first to share the prize, which is known internationally as architecture’s highest honour. “This is a dream we would have never dared to dream of”, stated Pigem. During its 30-year history, 'RCR Arquitectes' has carried out more than 60 singular projects, mainly in Catalonia but also in France and Belgium. Tom Pritzker, Chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, considered the winners’ work to have “had an impact on the discipline far beyond their immediate area” with projects ranging from public and private spaces to cultural venues and educational institutions. “They’ve demonstrated that unity of material can lend such incredible strength and simplicity to a building,” said Glenn Murcutt, Jury Chair.

Catalan director Carla Simón’s opera prima ‘Estiu 1993’ has won Best First Feature Award at the Berlinale Film Festival. Moreover, the International Jury awarded the film with the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus, ‘ex aequo’ with Chinese film ‘Become who I was’, by Chang-Yong Moon. ‘Estiu 1993’ tells the story of Frida, a 6-year-old girl who faces the first summer with her new adoptive family, after her mum died from AIDS. The film, whose main character played by young actress Laia Artigas captivated the jury, is based on the director’s own childhood. Ildikó Enyedi’s Hungarian drama “On Body and Soul” won the Golden Bear for best film at the 67^th Berlinale. The international jury, headed by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, handed out prizes far and wide, awarding a broad range of international works. 

Music and arts festivals fill Catalonia throughout the summer season. In recent years, the number and quality of them have grown exponentially, to include the participation of international artists who sometimes choose these festivals as their only Spanish tour date. So far, Jamiroquai and Pet Shop Boys are amongst the main names announced for Cruïlla Festival, to take place from the 7th to the 9th of July at Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum. One of the most long-standing festivals, the International Festival of Porta Ferrada, which takes place in the coastal town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, will have in their line-up Jamie Cullum and UB40, amongst many others. Beyond the festivals, no other than Sir Elton John has also confirmed that he will perform in Barcelona his only concert in Spain. This will be on the 3rd of December. 

New success for Barcelona-born film director J.A. Bayona on the night for Catalan cinema. His film ‘A Monster Calls’ won on Sunday eight Gaudí Awards, including Best Film in non-Catalan language, Best Director, Best Production Management, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction and Best Sound. ‘La Propera Pell’ (in English, ‘The Next Skin’), directed by Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo, won three Gaudí Awards, including Best Movie, Best Leading Actress for Emma Suárez and Best Screenplay. The Best Leading Actor Award went to Eduard Fernández for his role in ‘El hombre de las mil caras’ (‘The Man with a thousand faces). The movie ‘100 metros’ (‘100 metres’) got two statuettes, including Best Supporting Actress for Alexandra Jiménez and Best Supporting Actor for Karra Elejalde.

The painting, which comes on the market for the first time, will lead Bonhams’ Impressionist and Modern Art sale on Thursday 2 March, and has a guide estimate of €942,000-€1,413,000. The work is a portrait of Dali’s sister, Anna Maria, painted in 1925 and which was only exhibited once, that same year, in the Barcelona Sala Dalmau. The painting was then given to Anna Maria by the artist before their relationship deteriorated. The Director of the Dali Museums, Montse Aguer, explained to the CNA that they had no information on this piece of art, which was considered lost until now. The auction will allow the Dali Museum to get more information on the portrait and complete the details that they had about it in the Museums catalogue. However, Aguer did not specify whether the Museums will participate in the auction in order to bring the painting to Catalonia.

Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and Julio González are the protagonists of ‘Art revolutionaries’, a major exhibition which opened in London this Wednesday and will reproduce the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic from the 1937 Paris International Exposition. Catalan gallery Mayoral is the name responsible for the initiative, which aims to pay tribute “to those artists which were committed to democracy and freedom in the middle of Spanish Civil War”, Mayoral’s director, Jordi Mayoral, told the CNA. The Republican Pavilion displayed works by these artists and became a strategic platform to vindicate the tragic situation the country was going through. The exhibition includes archival documents to contextualise the artworks and “immerse the visitor in the Republican atmosphere”, added Mayoral.

Barcelona’s Picasso Museum will add 1,150 m² for exhibitions this 2017. This new area will be located on the second floor of the ‘Palau de les Finestres’, one of the five buildings composing the museum, which has been undergoing refurbishment. The Picasso Museum currently occupies five large town houses on Montcada street, in Barcelona’s old town, dating from between the 13^th and the 15^th century. During the presentation of the museum’s programme for this year, the Picasso Museum’s new director, Emmanuel Guigon, also announced that this year’s major exhibition will be ‘Picasso Portraits’, co-produced with London’s National Portrait Gallery, which will be displayed from March until June. There will also be three smaller exhibitions this 2017, some of them to be hosted in the restored area at the ‘Palau de les Finestres’.

U2 will play at Barcelona’s Estadi Olimpic on the 18th of July, as part of their world tour to commemorate the 30th anniversary of their acclaimed album ‘The Joshua Tree’. This will be the only concert of the Irish band in Spain, which will perform the entire album at each of the 25 shows they have confirmed. “I've sung some of these songs a lot - but never all of them”, U2 frontman Bono explained. "It seems like we have come full circle from when The Joshua Tree songs were originally written, with global upheaval, extreme right-wing politics and some fundamental human rights at risk", added guitarist The Edge. The tour will start on the 12^th of May and former Oasis member, Noel Gallagher will be the opening act at the eight European shows. Tickets for the Barcelona concert will be released next Monday, the 16th of January.

Temporada Alta, the renowned performing arts festival that takes place in Girona, reached this year its 25th birthday. After a quarter of century, the director of the event, Salvador Sunyer, took stock of its history in an interview with the CNA. Girona’s festival is noted for acting as the gateway to Spain, and often to Europe, for many international productions. Polish theatre director Krystian Lupa and British director Peter Brook were some of the big international names that could be seen at the festival this time out. In this vein, Sunyer stated thatencouraging work between companies and directors from Catalonia and international teams is one of the festival’s aims and long-term ambitions. A clear example of this wish is ‘Davant la Jubilació’ (‘Eve of Retirement’), in which Polish theatre director Lupa directs Catalan actors. This spectacle, and ten more, will tour internationally and 2016 is, indeed, the year in which many shows are having a longer trajectory after being released at the event.

Barcelona City Council will allocate almost €4.5 million for the maintenance, restoration and enhancement of the architectural heritage of Antoni Gaudí’s famous Park Güell and its surroundings. This investment comes from the fee charged to enter the park, but also partly from the city tourist tax, Barcelona Councillor for Architecture Daniel Mòdol stated. Since October 2013, tourists visiting the spot have had to pay an entrance fee. The Councillor of Gràcia District in Barcelona, Eloi Badia, explained that the remodelling aims at controlling the influx of visitors and recovering the daily life of the neighbourhood as well as the cultural and commercial activity of the area. According to Badia, many neighbours believe that they have to pay to enter the enclosure, but locals are not charged. “We want neighbours to understand that they can access [the park] for free, and we want to recover the cultural and daily activities”, he stressed.

The film ‘Lluvia en los Zapatos’ (‘Rain in the shoes’) by the Catalan director Maria Ripoll, will officially inaugurate the REC International Film Festival in Tarragona (southern Catalonia) this Thursday. In its sixteenth and most international edition yet, the REC International Film Festival seeks not only to introduce “new voices and talents” to the Catalan audience, but also to project Tarragona outward “as a generator of content”, the director of the event, Xavier Garcia Puerto said. From this Thursday and until the 6^th of December the Festival will screen some twenty films from eleven different countries, five of which are premieres in Spain and eleven in Catalonia. 

The Catalan literary corpus has recently incorporated a new addition: ‘Il Canzoniere’ (‘Songbook’) by Francesco Petrarca. This masterpiece by the poet from Tuscany was translated into Catalan intermittently during 20 years by the Catalan poet Miquel Desclot. Desclot began working on the volume in 1994, following the path of the Catalan poet Osbald Cardona, who attempted an incomplete translation in the 50s, and his work has now come to fruition. According to Desclot, the last stage of the translation process was “insane” and kept him fully occupied for the last two years. The Petrarch masterpiece has 366 poems and a total of 7,785 verses, which now can be enjoyed by Catalan readers in their own language, thanks to Desclot and the edition released by the Catalan publisher Proa.  

Picasso’s attraction to Romanesque art is to be definitively unveiled in an exhibition dedicated to him at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). The display will open its doors next Thursday and is co-organised with the Musée National Picasso-Paris. The exhibition includes forty works by the artist lent by the French museum, which are being added to the collection of Romanesque art from the MNAC. According to one of the exhibition’s curators, Emilia Philippot, the display demonstrates the “echoes of simplicity and primitivism” of Romanesque art in certain Picasso creations. Picasso, like other artists of his time, was attracted by the Romanesque, identified with the “childhood of art”. His interest is proved in the exhibition with various unpublished documents, such as correspondence and books belonging to the artist.

The 155 pictures that won the last ‘World Press Photo’ contest – the main photojournalism event at international level - will be on show at the Barcelona Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB). The Photographic Social Vision foundation, which is in charge of the creation, production and promotion of photojournalism and documentaries, launched this week the 12^th edition of the ‘World Press Photo’ exhibition in Barcelona, which will run until the 11^th of December. The images presented to the public were taken in 2015 throughout the world and won the prestigious international photojournalism award. In this year’s edition, visitors can see the photos of the awarded Spanish photographers Daniel Ochoa de Olza, Sebastián Liste, José Bautista and Mikel Aristregi.