Culture

Ramon Navarro has published a new book that aims to “clearly” describe the results of three generations of research about the origins of Christopher Columbus

In-Edit 2011, Barcelona’s International Music Documentary Film Festival ended its ninth edition after eleven days of showings that gathered 54 national and international new releases and around 30.000 spectators. ‘Next Music Station: Morocco’, a documentary produced by Al-Jazeera and directed by Fermín Muguruza, has been this year’s National Prize winner. The International Prize was for ‘Last Days Here’, about the life of Pentagram’s singer, Bobby Liebing. Another great surprise was the presence of musician Michael Nyman, author of many Hollywood soundtracks.

Perajaume is one of the main Catalan artists of our time, part of a generation that is already gaining a lot of international recognition, with artist’s such as Jaume Plensa. Perajaume is known for his landscape visual poetry, expressing the excess of the current times and exhorting the return to natural roots. The exhibition is not a conventional retrospective, but instead a “programmatic proclamation”, an element of reflection on the function, the limits and the fate of art when opposed to excess.

Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to adapt a series produced and broadcast by Catalonia’s public TV station. The American name will be ‘The Red Band Society’ and Marta Kauffman, creator of ‘Friends’, might be in charge of the script. The main characters in the series are a group of teenagers with cancer, who develop a friendship and explore their imagination in hospital. ‘Polseres vermelles’ was a huge success on Catalan television and the second season is in production.

The Catalan capital will be enjoying the 43rd edition of its jazz festival until December 1st. In the current edition, many Catalan artists will participate in the festival, such as Andrea Motis, Lluís Coloma, La Vella Dixeland or Biel Ballester. International figures such as Michel Camilo, Omar Sosa or Paolo Conte will also be on Barcelona’s stages.

Georges Enescu’s opera Oedipe will start its run next Saturday at a Belgian Opera House. It is a new challenge for La Fura del Baus, who was handed the task by Brussel’s La Monnaie–De Munt’s director after the great success of Le grand Macabre in 2009. Alex Ollé, director of the Catalan theatre company, explained CAN the troupe’s interest in this type of spectacle that is “equally or even more interesting than theatre”.

Barcelona’s Opera Theatre offers only three portrayals of the Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel’s opera ‘Jo, Dalí’ (I, Dalí). It is a four act opera, which comes to the Barcelona theatre for the first time. Xavier Benguerel is one of the most recognised classical music contemporary composers in Catalonia.

‘Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape’ was on show at London’s Tate Modern until September, being one of the must-see exhibitions of the year. Now it arrives at the Fundació Miró in Barcelona. It is the most complete exhibition on one of the most universal Catalan artists of all time, with 170 works on display from public and private collections from all over the world. The exhibition has the double objective of rediscovering Miró’s work and showing his commitment in the era he lived in. Another exhibition on Miró’s posters will run in parallel, focussing on his involvement in Catalan cultural, political and civic initiatives.

The 44th edition of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia begins with the presentation of ‘Eva’, a Catalan movie about robots and artificial intelligence. It stars German-Catalan actor Daniel Brühl (‘Inglorious Basterds’, ‘Good bye Lenin’, or ‘The Edukators’) and ACN talked to him. It is the first time a Catalan movie opens this international festival that will run from October 6th until October 16th.

The photography exhibition shows the pictures that were found in the so-called ‘Mexican suitcase’, in which original films by Capa, Taro and Seymour had been kept for decades. The exhibition displays not only pictures from the Spanish Civil War, but also the negatives and the manner in which photographers worked. Since the suitcase kept the original films, the contact sheets can be displayed and thus the photos are shown in the order they were taken.

"Other Egypt" brings together over 200 pieces formally preserved in the Louvre, many of which had not never left Paris since their arrival. The exhibition pictures the Christian heritage of Egypt; from the Roman times to the Arab conquest in the 7th century, Egypt was a Christian country.

In an historical decision, the Catalan Academy of Cinema chose a movie entirely in Catalan to represent Spain at the Oscars awards. ‘Pa negre’ (‘Black bread’) was the absolute winner of the last awards of the Spanish Academy awards, surprising everyone. However, the fact of it being in Catalan and that the movie competed with Almodóvar’s ‘The Skin I Live In’ made it difficult to predict if the movie was to finally represent Spain at the world’s top awards.

An agreement among the Hollywood majors, the movie theatres and the Catalan Government will increase the presence of American movies dubbed into Catalan. In 2011, only five Hollywood films were dubbed into Catalan. In 2012, 25 movies will be available in the language. The reason for this agreement is to promote the presence of the Catalan language in movie theatres, as currently Spanish almost monopolises the market.

Antoni Gaudí’s church will have a central tower, construction of which has already begun and is expected to be completed in seven years. It will be the tallest building in Barcelona, dominating the city’s skyline, standing at 170 metres high.

‘Pa negre’ (Black Bread), directed by Agustí Villaronga and shot entirely in Catalan, was the main winner of the last Spanish film awards surprising everyone. Now it has been pre-selected together with Pedro Almodóvar’s latest movie ‘La piel que habito’ ('The Skin I Live In') and Benito Zambrano’s ‘La voz dormida’ (The Sleeping Voice). The film that will represent Spain will be known on September 28th.