Cooking

The lower part of Barcelona’s best district is a quiet and stately neighbourhood. The House of Columns hides many secrets, and has witnessed many events. The Catalan capital’s multiculturalism has a lot to offer. It’s better to laugh than to cry!

In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Andreu, a child that belongs to the losing side, finds the corpses of a man and his son in the forest. The authorities want his father to be made responsible of the deaths, but Andreu tries to help his father by finding out who truly killed them. In this search, Andreu develops a moral consciousness against a world of adults fed by lies. In order to survive, he betrays his own roots and ends up finding out the monster that lives within him.

In a small village in Catalonia, the peach farmers of the Solé family spend every summer together picking fruit from their orchard. But when plans arise to install solar panels and cut down trees, the members of this tight-knit group suddenly face eviction – and the loss of far more than their home.

Amaia after breaking up with Rafa, falls in love with a Catalonian. Koldo, her father, goes to Sevilla to persuade Rafa to go to Catalonia and take Amaia's heart back.

Maria suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Luis, Maria's fifteen-year-old grandson, doesn't say very much either; he shuts himself off in his own silent world to escape his parent's marital crisis, spending time instead picking up stray cats and dogs off the street. His father, Miguel, wants to put a stop to this eccentric behavior, but his protective mother Alice indulges him. Nevertheless, the animals begin to appear at home in increasing numbers, making life complicated for the family in their flat.

Prades, France, 1940s. The exiled Catalan cellist Pau Casals decides not to perform any more in public until the fall of the dictatorship that oppresses Spain. Pierre, a young Frenchman studying with Casals, tries to convince him to celebrate an extraordinary concert as a tribute to freedom.

An archaeologist returns from Spain. Living alone, he goes about his daily rituals. A haunting leads to tragedy, raising further questions of the man’s life.

Dolors

The Three Wise Kings travel in search of the Messiah, with unexpected obstacles on the way.

Constitutionally precluded from claiming any right to self-determination, the Catalans stick to their guns. The separatist movement is gaining ground in Catalonia. Notwithstanding the Spanish Constitution (which states that Spain is indivisible, making any referendum thereby unconstitutional), 2.3 million people voted in the November 2014 de facto referendum. The results speak for themselves: 81% of Catalans are in favour of independence. Seizing this historic moment, filmmaker Alexandre Chartrand gives a voice to the civil society figures who have been propelled to centre stage in national politics.

Due to the increasing privatization of basic public services in Spain, companies such as BB Serveis are accused of misappropriating several million euros of public money intended to finance care for the elderly and other dependent persons.

On September 6, 2017, the Catalan regional government called an independence referendum. This propagandistic documentary by the Catalan government collects the experiences of an illegal referendum that led to the virtual independence of Spanish territory and the biggest constitutional crisis in Spain since 1981

There are houses, and then there’s Ricardo Bofill’s house: a brutalist former cement factory of epic proportions on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. A grandiose monument to industrial architecture in the Catalonian town of Sant Just Desvern, La Fabrica is a poetic and personal space that redefines the notion of the conventional home. “Nowadays we want everyone who comes through our door to feel comfortable, but that's not Bofill’s idea here,” says filmmaker Albert Moya, who directed latest installment of In Residence. “It goes much further, you connect with the space in a more spiritual way.” Rising above lush gardens that mask the grounds’ unglamorous roots, the eight remaining silos that once hosted an endless stream of workmen and heavy machinery now house both Bofill’s private life, and his award-winning architecture and urban design practice.

A native of the capital of Catalonia, the architect-urban planner, to whom we owe the Saint-Honoré market in Paris and the Donnelley Building in Chicago, speaks of Barcelona with infectious passion. "It's a unique city, difficult to understand with conventional diagrams, he explains, criss-crossing the main arteries of the city". It is an unfinished city, constantly changing, where everything has the charm of the unfinished". With a sharp eye, Ricardo Bofill observes and comments on volumes and scrolls. Standing, in the nave of the Sagrada Familia, arms outstretched, it pivots on itself as if to take in space. "You have to have your eyes wide open, move quietly, and at the same time remember what's behind. This is how we have the sense of space. Otherwise this art does not exist."

In a world where farming is mechanized and farm animals are fed with products coming from across the globe, a young shepherd is trying to keep his practice sustainable by using ancestral ways to raise his flock.

Esmalts

A serious crisis has shaken Spain since the referendum on self-determination and the proclamation of the independence of Catalonia by the government of Carles Puigdemont, bold actions firmly fought by the Spanish government by applying the constitutional article that allows it to place a region under guardianship. While Spain is on the verge of implosion, Europe is holding its breath.

Fèlix is a farmer who lives in the quiet vineyards of the Catalan Penedès. One day, he receives a visit from his grandfather, an old wizard, who asks him for help. Fèlix's sister, Sara, has been kidnapped by the dark wizards who live in the castle of the Sant Cebrià’s mountain. She will be sacrificed to the evil Wizard King Morden, who thousands of years ago was imprisoned by Fèlix's grandfather in that castle. Being Fèlix the only one able to save Sara, he will arm himself with his grandfather's ancient stick; he will walk to the wizards' castle and will cope with Morden.

Joan Ximénez el Petitet is a Catalan gypsy who pursues a dream. A former musician now —a percussionist, son of Ramón el Huesos who worked with the mythical singer Peret—, and affected by a rare chronic disease, he wants to accomplish the promise he made to his mother before she died: to celebrate a rumba concert on the stage of the Liceu, a great theater in Barcelona, along with a big symphony orchestra.

Disinformation, ignorance and the lack of dissemination of the Catalan reality in the rest of Spain make it necessary for civil society to reach an understanding.