After rediscovering family roots in Con el viento (2018) and stirring the flames of passion in Dúo (2022), Meritxell Colell (Barcelona, 1983) explores the wounds of exile and the pain of loss in Lejos de los árboles, the film she premieres this Thursday in the competition of the prestigious Locarno Festival. Through the journey of a Mexican sound artist and her Peruvian guide, Colell mixes temporality and genre in an almost fractal narrative about absence; undoubtedly, her most well-rounded, ambitious, and complex film.

The critic and essayist Jordi Costa, head of exhibitions at the CCCB, assures that he has read Thomas Pynchon's latest novel, A oscuras (Tusquets, 2026), with a certain "tension between the reading speed the book demands and the need to savor each page", aware that, after finishing it, he will surely not read another novel by the veteran American writer, who is already 89 years old. Costa, who confesses to being "a big fan" of Pynchon, found A oscuras to be "a very fun and youthful novel", although the reading process was curious: "Lately I felt that I had gotten used to Pynchon's long and digressive sentences, but in this book that no longer happened to me and it took me a while to acclimatize. And I think it's a matter of code, because the story is set in the thirties and draws from the noir novels of Hammett and Chandler".

What would Marcos Prior from 1995, the one who started his career as an author in the fanzine Rau, of Droga a la lluna, the graphic novel he published this year, think? “He would be amazed, but above all because in the 90s it was unimaginable to publish a hardcover book. A staple already seemed like a great opportunity!” For three decades, Marcos Prior (l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1975) has had a continuous presence in bookstores, sometimes as a complete author and at other times as a screenwriter for artists like Danide, Artur Laperla, David Rubín, Jordi Pastor, or Gustavo Rico. But it is in the works he signs alone –like the series Focus group, which he published in ARA– where perhaps the purest and most radical Prior emerges, the one who claims the raw line and “a drawing that cannot be used to advertise a bank, that cannot be assimilated by the capitalist system”.

Two years ago, Pablo la Parra (Gandia, 1987) took over from Esteve Riambau as director of the Filmoteca de Catalunya, a period that has allowed him to begin to deploy a transformative project that has already been noticed in a programming that is increasingly open and permeable to contemporary concerns. In conversation with l’ARA, the Valencian researcher takes stock of his management at the head of the center.

When she was little, Esty Quesada's dream was to go to the United States. "It was the only thing I wanted to do in my life and, as soon as I had some money, I bought the tickets to go on a trip". A week ago, the youtuber, actress, podcaster and writer presented at the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest the video of her latest trip to the United States, American SUP, an unscripted and unpretentious road movie guided by the trash spirit of Harmony Korine – it's shot with a 1997 handicam – which follows Quesada through the American Midwest on a semi-improvised route of death metal – or Morrisey – concerts, shooting galleries, themed restaurants, sculpture cemeteries, delirious monuments, and a prosthetic corpse shop.

"From noon until three in the afternoon a darkness spread over the whole land." With these words theGospel according to Matthew explains the agony of Jesus Christ on the cross. During these hours of darkness, which exaggerate the duration of a solar eclipse, the messiah endures the suffering in silence until, shortly before dying, he lets out a final cry of despair: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Considered by many the great European film music composer of this century and the natural successor to Maurice Jarre, Alexandre Desplat (Paris, 1961) has two Oscars in his career (for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water) and ten nominations – and since Sunday also the Master of Cinema of the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest –, but he continues to feel uncomfortable with praise. “I am not the best at anything, just a composer with little time to write music for some film,” Desplat protests. “It’s curious, because most composers in the history of cinema ended up in cinema by accident: Alex North, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota... They all wanted to be classical composers. But I always wanted to work in cinema”.

In 1989, Rick Moranis was Hollywood's most profitable actor. That same year he released three comedies that grossed over $100 million at the North American box office: Dear, I have found the children, Ghostbusters 2 and Parenthood (premiered in our home as Sweet home... sometimes!). Forged in the anarchic humor of late 70s Canadian radio and television, Moranis jumped to Hollywood in the early 80s and paraded his nerd overwhelmed and overcome by circumstances by titles such as Ghostbusters (1984) and The horror store (1987), among others.

The guitarist Pepe Habichuela, a giant of flamenco music from one of the great lineages of cante, has died in Madrid at the age of 82, as reported by El País and confirmed by the delegate for Arts of the Madrid City Council, Marta Rivera de la Cruz. "Pepe Habichuela's guitar is fading, but his music will continue to play wherever flamenco continues to tell who we are," the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez posted on X.

Rumors about the death of superhero cinema have turned out to be exaggerated. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the new installment of the arachnid hero's saga, has debuted at the international box office with a staggering €804.3 million gross, the second-largest figure in history (unadjusted for inflation), surpassed only by the €1.041 billion of the premiere of The Avengers: Endgame (2019). The film starring Tom Holland has also premiered with record box office figures in North America, with an estimated 308 million euros in its opening weekend, nearing the 309.7 million from the US premiere ofThe Avengers: Endgame.

In a hermetic and strange all-girls boarding school surrounded by walls where adults are only vaguely perceived, Atenea (Maria Schwinning) spends her days sharing fantastic stories that exude the fears and longings of a childhood crashing against puberty. This is how Mala bèstia begins, by Bàrbara Farré (Barcelona, 1994), the feature film debut of the director of music videos like Milionària by Rosalía or El relámpago by Amaia, who already showed her interest in adolescence as a confusing and contradictory territory in the short film the short film La última virgen (2017), awarded at the Gaudí Awards and the Malaga Festival. "Adolescence has always interested me because there is a kind of temporal void," says Farré. "Ceasing to be a girl to become a woman seems like a dark idea, but it can also be beautiful and we shouldn't be afraid of it, because it means you can create your own universe and discover the emotions of the person you will become."

Gael García Bernal perfectly remembers the moment he decided to dedicate himself to cinema. He was filming Y tú mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001), while he and Diego Luna, the film's other protagonist, were carrying some boxes with cameras and other filming equipment along a beach. Suddenly, they said to each other: “This cinema thing is great, isn't it? We should dedicate ourselves to doing this.” And with that unconscious optimism of youth, they promised each other they would do it together. And so they did: they founded a production company and a festival, and above all, they remained good friends. “We continue to work together and have a very close relationship,” the actor explained this Saturday in Palma. “I thought it was the most normal thing in the world, to have a great friendship and, at the same time, a good working relationship, but over the years I’ve discovered that it’s not very common.”

The actor Manolo Solo, one of the most versatile and solid performers in Spanish cinema, died this Thursday from cancer at the age of 62, according to the Spanish Film Academy. Solo won the Goya for best supporting actor in 2017 for the thrillerTarde para la ira, by Raúl Arévalo, and was also nominated as a supporting actor for El buen patrón, Cerrar los ojos and B, la película, and as a lead actor for Una finca portuguesa, for which he was also nominated for a Gaudí. A chameleon-like performer, he could disappear into his characters and navigate from comedy to drama with the security and solidity of gifted actors.

In the still innocent Marvel of the early 70s, a phenomenon unprecedented in superhero comics occurred in the Spiderman series: the protagonist grew up. Scriptwriter Gerry Conway, who had joined the series at just 19 years old, confronted Peter Parker with the complexity of adult relationships and the tragedy of the death of his first great love, Gwen Stacy. Over time, the publisher decided that growing characters wasn't good for business and could alienate readers: it was better to keep superheroes frozen in an eternal present and exploit their iconicity without deep changes that altered their essence. Well, in the new cinematic installment of the superhero, which arrived in theaters on Wednesday, something similar has happened: Spiderman has ceased to be that inexperienced and excitable teenager that Tony Stark recruited as a substitute for the Avengers and has become a sad and lonely young adult, tormented by the sacrifice he made at the end of "Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), when everyone, including his girlfriend, magically forgot about Peter Parker's existence.

The Irish singer Glen Hansard, who in 2007 won the Oscar for the song Falling Slowly –written for the soundtrack of the film Once–, has died at the age of 56 in a motorcycle accident in Lucan, west of Dublin, as reported by the BBC. Hansard was one of the protagonists of the film The Commitments (1991) and led his own rock band, The Frames, before triumphing with Once, starring Hansard himself and Markéta Irglová, who were also authors of the soundtrack as members of The Swell Season, a folk group that recorded three albums.

Kavinsky, one of the most international figures in French electronic music, known primarily for the massive success of his track Nightcall –included in the soundtrack of the film Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)–, has been found dead by the French police at his home in Paris, as reported by the French newspaper Le Parisien. Police are investigating the possibility that the death is a consequence of a stroke, as in preceding days the musician had suffered very intense headaches. Vincent Belorgey, his real name, was one of the stars of the closing ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games, where he performed a version of Nightcall with the French band Phoenix and the Belgian singer Angèle.

More than a hundred free concerts make up the musical program of La Mercè 2026, which from September 23 to 27 will turn the squares and streets of Barcelona into urban stages for a great international festival, with musical projects from some thirty countries. Música Mercè, BAM, and Acció Cultura Viva are the three pillars that shelter a program in which, once again, the most popular names, mostly local, gather at the concerts on Avinguda Maria Cristina and those on Bogatell beach. On the first stage, among others, Maria Jaume, Els Catarres, Els Amics de les Arts, and the former singer of La Oreja de Van Gogh, Leire Martínez, will perform; on the Poblenou stage, among others, Al·lèrgiques al Pol·len, Buhos, Miki Núñez, Svetlana, and La Pegatina will perform, who according to Gisela Sais, curator of Mercè Música, will offer a concert with "a large part of the repertoire in Catalan". Two concerts for these stages are yet to be announced: a "surprise artist" on Avinguda de Maria Cristina and a "group to be announced" on Bogatell beach.

The Atlàntida Film Fest is the mother of all online festivals. Organized as always by Filmin, it has not lost the spirit with which it was born fifteen years ago: to discover unreleased auteur cinema programmed at major international festivals – and from our own country – and to recover the work of established filmmakers. Since 2016, it has combined the online edition with a face-to-face version in Palma, the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest, which this year will receive such illustrious visitors as David Lowery, Alexander Desplat, Gael García Bernal, Javier Bardem, and Victoria Luengo. Both editions kick off this Friday, but while the in-person festival lasts a week, the online version allows you to see the 91 films in the program – 65 of which are new to the State – until August 24.

Lina, a fashion professional who has just collected an award in Geneva, shrugs off the trophy as if it were a nuisance and begins to wander through the city's solitary streets until, suddenly, she throws herself into the icy waters of the Rhône. That's how magnetic and powerful the opening sequence of Las corrientes is, the third film by Milagros Mumenthaler (Abrir puertas y ventanas, La idea de un lago), which the Argentine director conceived precisely from this first image of a woman throwing herself into the river. “It came to mind right there, in Geneva, where I grew up and have family – she explains–. The image provoked many questions in me, and I tried to follow them in an intuitive way”.

The writer and journalist Ramon Solsona (Barcelona, 1950) has always defined himself as a "worker" of Catalan letters; a profession that the author compares to that of a miner: