Catalonia - Art and Culture 2018

Blood comes out of the split in his lips and he leaves a trail on the tarmac. He stumbles forward with stiff limbs. He is one of the dozens of zom- bies which, in spectacular make up, take part in a parade of the living dead through the streets of the centre of Sitges (Costa Barcelona). This town of white houses by the sea, which used to be one of the epicentres of Modernisme, is now a fearful sight to behold. At least in early October, when the Sitges Film Festival is held, which started in 1968 and has become the most popular event on the Catalan cinema calendar. It has an intentionally freakish about it and parallel Monsters, zombies, vampires, serial killers, and UFOs... Why has everyone come to Sitges? Sitges Film Festival

A film-like country

What do ‘Mr. Arkadin’ and ‘Pandora and the Flying Dutchman’ have in common? Does anyone know where

‘In Cold Blood’ was written? The answers, in Catalonia.

© oriol llauradó

© Javier garcía-díez (chopo)

activities like its Sitges Zombie Walk, it is an op- portunity to see the fantastic and terror films that everyone is waiting for. It also includes flashbacks and short films, and gives fans the best opportu- nities to meet their idols. Here we have seen ‘monsters’ of cinema ranging from Roger Corman to George A. Romero, from David Cronenberg to Joe Dante, and from Jodie Foster to Sir Anthony Hopkins or Vanessa Redgrave. Take your hat off to them, or pull of your head, if you prefer...

In 1896, the Lumière brothers put a camera on a boat, and leaving the pier at the end of the Ram- bla, they filmed the port of Barcelona from the water. It was considered the first film made in Catalonia, although the first cinema projection would not come until a few months later. Since then, many have used the Catalan capital as a stage. Pedro Almódovar did just that in his film All About My Mother , where the Palau de la Música and Montjuïc appear. Woody Allen filmed here as well. The main characters of his film walk by the rationalist building of the Fun- dació Joan Miró, the streets and cafes of old town Barcelona, and the traditional correfoc fes- tival with its fire and gunpowder. Less hellish but more terrifying was Rec , the international success that Jaume Balagueró filmed in a building on the Rambla de Catalunya, one of Barcelona’s stately avenues. The films with the most widely-recognised locations in the Catalan countryside are those that were shot on the Costa Brava, whose abrupt geography and deep blue sea were discovered by the rest of the world in the nineteen fifties. The Costa Brava was put on the map in 1951 with the film Pan- dora and the Flying Dutchman , with Ava Gard-

ner. The Costa Brava was also used to film scenes for the film Mr. Arkadin (1955), by Orson Welles , or Suddenly Last Summer, a film from 1959 by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring Elisa- beth Taylor. Literary scenarios Catalonia can also be explored with a book in your hand. Barcelona has been mentioned in thousands of literary works. It is portrayed in The Time Of The Doves by Mercè Rodoreda; towers and the wonderful views from Vallvidrera are

projection at the sitges festival.

the light- house of sant sebastià, on the costa brava.

170 MORE THAN FILMS are projected every year at the Festival de Sitges

sign of the film by

the director woody allen.

RAIN OF FESTIVALS Short films with wine as the theme, films of women, those devoted to children... There is a cinema festival for every spectator. This is what it seems, given the exten- sive calendar of cinema festivals in Catalonia. They are not to be missed: the Festival de Cine de Girona, devoted to cartoons, videogames, documentaries and television (September); the Animac de Lleida, a meeting with the best international cartoon films (February); the REC Festival Internacional de Cinema de Tarragona (December); In-Edit, devoted to musical documentary cinema (between October and November) and L’Alternativa, focused on the more experimental forms of creation (November), both in Barcelona.

© gZ

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