There is a moment in José Luis Guerín's film Stories from the Good ValleyIn this film, Barcelona appears on the horizon as a distant promise, or perhaps as a threat. From Vallbona, the city's silhouette seems like something happening elsewhere, in another time. And yet, you are there, within it, treading on land still irrigated by the Comtal irrigation canal as it has for centuries, amidst orchards tended with a patience and tenacity that the fast-paced city has forgotten how to practice. It's a neighborhood that's difficult to reach. This isn't a metaphor: it's truly difficult to get there, physically, amidst trains and highways that cut through it without stopping. And perhaps that's why it has preserved something that the rest of the city has been losing without realizing it. In fact, an earlier film, Little IndianMarc Recha's film already introduced us to a little-known space that maintains its unique personality in an overflowing metropolis.

Culture has ceased to be a mere complement and has become a structural necessity for our society. In a context of accelerated change like the one we are experiencing, marked by uncertainty and the fragility of life trajectories, what education and healthcare have done for decades—guaranteeing opportunities, security, and shared progress—is now insufficient if it is not accompanied by elements that make us feel connected, that give meaning to those who give meaning to things. And it is in this context that culture, with its resources and activities, can significantly help us. This function of giving meaning and articulating unfolds in different spheres. In education, the digital revolution and the breakdown of traditional frameworks mean that schools can no longer limit themselves to transmitting standardized knowledge; they must contribute to forming individuals capable of adapting, working with others, embracing diversity, and critically interpreting the reality that surrounds them. The ability to imagine, create, and combine languages ​​and experiences is as relevant today as mastery of academic content, and it is here that culture—in the form of arts, youth practices, and digital languages—ceases to be peripheral and becomes central. The same is true in health, where urban studies show consistent correlations between educational level, cultural participation, and indicators of well-being and life expectancy. Culture also provides narratives, symbols, and shared spaces in experiences of inclusion and community, allowing people to recognize themselves as part of a "we," beyond the divisions of class, origin, or age.

We face increasingly complex collective problems of all kinds, with overlapping and intertwined issues. It often happens that the public administrations responsible for responding have a division of powers and levels of government that frequently makes it difficult to know who is responsible for what. But if, in addition, the most relevant administration in Catalonia uses different maps and territorial divisions in each department, the situation becomes very worrying. Indeed, the various departments of the Generalitat of Catalonia operate with territorial divisions that do not coincide. It is true that this lack of uniformity stems from the specific historical and logistical needs of each area of government (healthcare, education, etc.), but it is also true that, as the effects of changing times make things more complicated, as we mentioned, we could begin to see a situation where "people have problems, the Generalitat has departments."

In times like these, is it possible to imagine ways of doing politics and leadership styles that do not only seek confrontation, pointing the finger at the adversary, or seeking audiences based on who says the loudest? We are at a juncture in which the complexity and gravity of the problems we face would seem to demand leadership and ideas that are up to the challenge, but, instead, simplification and bullyingAnd we have examples both far away and very close. All of this came to mind while watching Andrea Segre's film. The great ambition, which after a huge success in Italy, has been brought here by Filmin. The film features the great entanglements of Italian politics in the 1970s, starring Enrico Berlinguer, then Secretary General of the Italian Communist Party, but also featuring Aldo Moro, the Christian Democrat leader who was ultimately assassinated by the Red Brigades in 1978.Catalan Encyclopedia Enrico Berlinguer is often described as a politician born in Sàsser, Sardinia, to a family distantly related to Catalonia. There has been speculation about the connection between the surname Berlinguer and that of Berenguer, just as some recall that the bus that ran from Sàsser to Alghero was called La Freccia Catalana. But the truth is that the greatest mark that Enrico Berlinguer left in Catalonia is not determined by his origins, but by his enormous political influence in the configuration and political thinking of what, throughout the Franco regime, was the main party against the dictatorship, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC). This influence was especially evident in the 1970s, in the final moments of Franco's regime and in the midst of the political transition to democracy. Berlinguer's transformation of the Italian Communist Party had a great impact on the PSUC, where people like Jordi Solé Tura had stood out by translating the works of Antonio Gramsci and who had always preferred the Italian communist tradition to the French one, more present in Santiago Carrillo's PCE.

As the world and its evolution become more incomprehensible, uncertain, and problematic, we feel more helpless and we search in emotional aspects for what we don't find in the rational analysis of our surroundings. There is often a mismatch between what is happening to each of us and how we assess what surrounds us. The typical question we ask when we meet someone we don't see often is "How are you?" And more and more people are saying "Well, if we don't go into details." Everything moves so fast and everything is getting more complicated. Never have there been so many things and tools at our disposal, never have we felt so little like we're getting anywhere, that everything is elusive and unexpectedly fragile. In moments like these, emotions are running high. If you feel understood and are in an environment of trust, you can bring out those more empathetic emotional expressions. And the thrill of being with people who understand you and with whom you share makes you feel good. But these spaces and moments are difficult to find in the daily acceleration and disquiet that unsettles everything.

This is an old dilemma that has endured through many historical vicissitudes, in which the excess of one of the two poles of the equation has generated problems of coexistence. Although digitalization generated a certain resurgence of the spirit and meaning of cooperation and sharing (as expressed in the case of Wikipedia), the truth is that the hegemony of competitive logic, the essence of the capitalist economy, is very evident, and with the arrival of Trump and his followers, it has become overwhelming. In our country, in recent months, and as a result of the debate unleashed by BBVA's attempts to take over Banc Sabadell, the word and the concept competence They have reached levels of a totalizing paradigm. It's not normal for banks to talk to each other through all kinds of media, and for the debate/dialogue about their future to fill, through advertisements, newspaper pages or many minutes of television time. The issue, obviously, doesn't only affect the shareholders of both banking entities, but I don't know if the scope it has ended up having was imaginable.

The brutal attack that the new Trump administration and its techno-oligarchy allies are carrying out against everything that sounds public is so exaggerated that it may seem simply bizarre to us, and as such become part of what we discuss with our work colleagues and friends when we have a moment. But the matter is much more serious, since when public spending, public servants, taxes and all the so-called institutional chiringuitos are attacked, behind it there are essential public policies and services for a large part of the population. On the other hand, it is not just another eccentricity of the new Trumpian era, but in Europe (and in Catalonia) there are many supporters of applying the same logic a public sector that is accused of wasting resources, of caring only about those who take advantage of the system and of having grown in an excessive way.