200 experts choose the best Catalan films of the 21st century
A selection of critics, journalists, academics and people from the cinema sector select the best films of the last 25 years
BarcelonaIn 1952, the English magazine Sight & Sound asked 85 critics from around the world for their 10 favorite films in the history of cinema. 63 responded to the call and with the lists they sent, a first possible canon of cinema history was compiled, led with 25 votes by Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. The Sight & Sound poll, repeated and expanded every ten years, has demonstrated the power of lists to create opinion, promote debate, and celebrate excellence in cinema. With this same aim, ARA has asked 200 experts what are the best Catalan films of the 21st century. The objective is to celebrate Catalan cinema of the last 25 years, but, above all, to think and debate our cinema with a playful and critical spirit.
The complete list resulting from the survey will be published on April 12 in the supplement Diumenge, which will include a special dossier with texts by ARA critics on the 25 most voted films and a report on the most voted film. This content and the individual lists of all voters will be available from April 11 on a special website designed by ARA's interactives team. And before that, on Friday, April 10, we will have a first taste where we will reveal the titles from 25 to 16. The experts who have participated in the survey are mostly critics and journalists specializing in cinema, both from Catalan media and from outside Catalonia, but also researchers, academics, programmers, festival directors, and diverse profiles from the film industry.
Methodology
Why does the survey focus only on the last 25 years? Mainly due to the intermittent nature of Catalan cinema history, lacking continuity after Francoism and the displacement of production centers to Madrid. Catalan cinema has many histories, not just one: that of pioneers like Segundo de Chomón, that of amateur Catalan cinema, that of post-war crime films, that of the School of Barcelona… We wanted to tell the story that surely belongs to us as a newspaper born in 2010: that of contemporary Catalan cinema, which at the turn of the 21st century begins a new era of formal code renewal. It is also the period in which women are incorporated into Catalan cinema and, therefore, the most representative of its potential.
Posing a survey like this also leads us to the question of what we understand by Catalan cinema, a debate that is still open. The option we have chosen aims to be the most comprehensive: to consider Catalan all films directed by a Catalan filmmaker, regardless of the place of production, and also films with Catalan production, regardless of the percentage of Catalan production, the language used, or the origin of the artistic team. It is a decision that does not aim to close the debate around Catalan identity and cinema, but simply to open the most exhaustive window possible to observe cinema made by Catalan directors or from the Catalan production ecosystem.
Following the example of Sight and Sound, we have asked all participants for a list of 10 films without order or hierarchy, and we have attributed one vote to each film. We have accepted any film with a minimum duration of 60 minutes and released (in cinemas, festivals, or platforms) between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2025. A total of 200 experts have participated in the survey, collectively voting for 267 different films. All of this is intended to be an invitation to discover the depth and richness of current Catalan cinema and its best films.
Events at the Filmoteca
To discuss the last 25 years of Catalan cinema based on the results of the ARA survey, the Filmoteca de Catalunya will host on Tuesday, April 14th at 6 p.m. a round table with four of the experts who participated in the survey: ARA critics and lecturers Eulàlia Iglesias and María Adell Carmona; critic, researcher and filmmaker Arnau Vilaró, and film programmer Miquel Escudero. And the next day, Wednesday, April 15th at 7 p.m., the Filmoteca will dedicate a special session to the most voted film in the ARA survey focusing on the creative processes of the work and hosted by the film's director.
