THE ART OF DISILLUSIONMENT
Screenings
Thursday, 7 August
Cinema Catalunya – 18:30h
Session of Catalan Short Films
Avistament 1978
Guillem Miró. 2020. 8 minuts. VOC
A young man from Mallorca, confined in Barcelona, explores his hometown using Google Maps and discovers strange phenomena connected to a past UFO sighting.
Maruja
Berta García-Lacht. 2022. 14 minuts. VOE
Maria Antònia Bravo García, better known as Maruja, lives with her husband in Sant Ildefons, a working-class neighborhood of Cornellà on the outskirts of Barcelona. She is 87 years old, gets bored at home, and often goes out into the street to get some fresh air that might bring a smile to her face, always with her shopping cart.
Setmana Santa
Gerard Miró. 09’26 minuts. 2021. VOC
During Holy Week with his devout grandmother, Gerard develops an intense relationship with Jesus. The Good Friday procession marks his sexual awakening, confusing divine love with carnal desire.
Primer Contacte
Pau Escribano. 2009. 9 minuts. VOC.
An astronaut has been navigating through space alone for 13 years, 7 months, 2 days, 5 hours, and 2 minutes. His mission: to find intelligent life, but he still hasn’t found anything…
Diògenes, el gos
Mateu Ciurana. 2014. 14,16 minuts. VOC
The philosopher Diogenes leads an absolutely austere life. He spends his time provoking the established power and making his fellow citizens reflect. One day, he receives news that the young Prince Alexander is visiting the city. The short film is a transposition to modern times of the famous encounter between Diogenes of Sinope and Alexander the Great in classical Greece.
Catalunya Cinema – 22:00h
Film
El Agente Topo
Maite Alberdi
2020, 90′, Chile
Rómulo is a private detective. When a client hires him to investigate the nursing home where her mother lives, Rómulo decides to train Sergio (83 years old), who has never worked as a detective, to spend a season as an undercover agent in the home. Once infiltrated, struggling to assume his role as a “mole” and hide his adorable and affectionate personality, he ends up becoming more of an ally than a spy to his endearing fellow residents.
Friday, 8 August
Catalunya Cinema – 12:00h
Film
Domingo, Domingo
Laura García Andreu. 2023. 71 min. VOC
Domingo Domingo, a small farmer from les Alqueries, has secretly created a high-quality tangerine: tart, juicy, and slightly sweet. In a market dominated by multinationals that patent the best varieties, he dreams of living off the land, following his family’s tradition. Hoping to get rich, he travels to the Berlin Fair to sell the patent on the big international market.
Cinema Catalunya – 20:00h
Film
Sobre lo infinito
Roy Andersson. 2019. 76 min. VOSE
A poetic reflection on life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality.
Guided by a Scheherazade-like narrator, we journey through both everyday and historical moments.
A couple floats over a war-torn Cologne; a father ties his daughter’s shoelaces in the rain.
Sobre lo infinito is a kaleidoscope of the eternally human: an ode to the vulnerability of existence.
Open-air Cinema, Plaça del Mercat – 22:00
Film
Mary and Max
Adam Elliot, 2009, 92 minuts. VOSE
Mary is a lonely girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne; Max, a Jewish man with Asperger’s who lives in New York. Despite their differences, they write to each other for twenty years, sharing an unusual friendship that defies distance, time, and the hardships of life. With humor and tenderness, the film explores themes such as autism, obesity, anxiety, alcoholism, and religious differences.
Saturday, 9 August
Catalunya Cinema – 17:00h
Film
Canino
Yorgos Lanthimos. 2009. 96 min. VOSC
A family (father, mother, and three children) lives on the outskirts of the city in a house surrounded by a high wall. By their parents’ decision, the children have never left the house nor had any contact with the outside world. Their education, hobbies, games, etc., all conform to the model imposed by their parents. The only person permitted to enter the house and break their strict isolation is Christina. A gift she gives to one of the daughters will have major consequences.
Catalunya Cinema – 19:00h
Film
Weekend
Jean-Luc Godard. 1967. 105 minuts. VOSE
A bourgeois couple embarks on a trip to the wife’s parents’ house with the goal of securing their inheritance. Along the way, they are plunged into a chaotic, violent, and absurd world where social and moral collapse becomes evident. With a provocative and groundbreaking style, Week-end is a fierce critique of consumerism, the hypocrisy of modern society, and the decay of Western values.
Catalunya Cinema – 22:00h
Film
L’Orgia
Francesc Bellmunt. 1978. 101 min. VOC
A group of progressive young people from Barcelona organizes a weekend orgy as an act of liberation from a series of inhibitions they believe they have overcome. The fresh and entertaining screenplay by Juanjo Puigcorbé and Francesc Bellmunt, based on a true story about several students from the Institut del Teatre, gave rise to a genuinely Catalan type of comedy that Bellmunt would go on to cultivate extensively.
The film openly discusses many taboos inherited from the Franco era and, despite being a work of fiction, takes on a documentary-like value. Furthermore, its magnificent ending is a true provocation.
Sunday, 10 August
Catalunya Cinema – 17:00h
Film
It Must be Heaven
Elia Suleiman. 2019. 97 min. VOSE.
Elia Suleiman flees Palestine in search of a new homeland, only to realize that his country of origin still follows him like a shadow. The promise of a new life quickly transforms into a comedy of the absurd. No matter how far he travels, from Paris to New York, something always reminds him of his native land.
A farcical tale that explores identity, nationality, and belonging, in which Elia Suleiman asks a fundamental question: where can we feel “at home”?