cinema

Reduce VAT on cinema tickets, urge Catalan parties and movie sector

May 18, 2017 02:27 PM | ACN

Global support in Catalonia to reduce VAT on cinema tickets from the current 21% to 10%. Compared to other EU countries, in which cultural activities including the movie sector benefit from reduced VAT, Spanish citizens have to live with high taxes on culture. Politicians and associations of the cinema sector in Catalonia consider the 21% VAT on cinema tickets “discriminatory” in comparison to other EU countries. In Germany, for example, there is reduced VAT (7%) on movies (not including damaging content for youth). In Belgium cultural events have a VAT of 6% and in neighboring France, VAT on cultural activities is 7%. That is why these cultural groups have lined up to urge the Spanish government to change it in the 2017 budget and set it at the same level as bullfighting, which is currently taxed at just 10%.

‘A Monster Calls’ wins eight Gaudí Awards

January 30, 2017 02:54 PM | ACN

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.

Tarragona hosts the most international edition of the REC Film Festival yet

December 1, 2016 07:25 PM | ACN

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 6th of December the Festival will screen some twenty films from eleven different countries, five of which are premieres in Spain and eleven in Catalonia. 

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Catalan cinema returns to Cambridge Film Festival for fifth consecutive year

October 21, 2016 06:22 PM | ACN

From the 20th to the 27th of October Cambridge will host the 36th edition of its well-known film festival and Catalan cinema will again have its own place in the programme. For the fifth time the event features ‘Camera Catalonia’, the most important fair in the UK focused on Catalan film. This year’s edition includes two of the most successful box office comedies in recent years: ‘Barcelona Summer Night’ and the sequel ‘Barcelona Christmas Night’, by young director Dani de la Orden. There are two other premieres, the documentary about Xavier Cugat, a Catalan musician during the golden years of Hollywood who became one of the originators of the Latin sound, ‘Sex, Maracas & Chihuahuas’and ‘The Virus of Fear’ by renowned Catalan film director Ventura Pons.“Everybody appreciates that cinema is one of best presentation letters to the world and that it is a perfect way of making us known to the world”, ‘Camera Catalonia’s curator, Ramon Lamarca, told the CNA.

Six Catalan productions at the 59th BFI London Film Festival

October 9, 2015 02:23 PM | ACN / Sara Prim

The 59th BFI London Film Festival 2015 includes six Catalan signature productions. Hèctor Fernández’s ‘The corpse of Anna Fritz’, Esteve Soler’s ‘Interior. Family’ and Cesc Gay’s ‘Truman’ are the titles directed by Catalans and three more are Catalan co-productions, Fernando León de Aranoa’s ‘A Perfect Day’, Eugenio Canevari’s ‘Paula’ and Patricio Guzmán’s ‘The Pearl Button’. A total of 240 films from 72 different countries will be shown in different theatres in the British capital, amongst them the work of internationally renowned directors Terence Davis, Cary Fukunaga and Jonas Cuarón, to name a few. 

Sitges International Film Festival focuses on “terror in all its forms”

October 9, 2015 10:39 AM | ACN / Sara Prim

Almost 200 fantastic and terror genre films will be projected, from the 9th to the 18th of October, in the 48th edition of Catalonia’s International Fantastic Film Festival, in Sitges. The opening film this Friday will be the lauded “The Witch”, whose director Robert Eggers won the best director award in Sundance Festival. Sitges 2015 will also commemorate the 20th anniversary of David Fincher’s ‘Seven’ and tribute north-American director Oliver Stone, who will be awarded the Honorific Prize. The Festival, in partnership with Mobile World Capital Barcelona, have launched ‘Phonetastic’ a novelty of this year which aims to power all the potential of new generation mobile devices as movie-making tools.  According to his director, Àngel Sala the pace of tickets sales is similar to last years but a new venue has been added to the seven existing, Cinema Tramuntana. 

 

Ingrid Bergman season at the Filmoteca de Catalunya

August 26, 2015 08:28 PM | ACN

The Catalan Film Archive presents this September a season celebrating the career of acclaimed Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, born 100 years ago this year. The ‘Ingrid Bergman Centenary’ will include the projection of 17 of her films, including some from her first years in the acting business in her native Sweden, the successful ‘Casablanca’ and her last movie, also Swedish, ‘Höstsonaten’. Remembered as one of the great stars of Hollywood, Bergman once said that she never “sought success in order to get fame and money”. “It’s the talent and the passion that count in success”, the leading actress from Casablanca added.