In the last edition of the Oscars, the award for best documentary film was won by Mr. Nobody against Putin. The impact of the story of this high school teacher in deep Russia overshadowed another splendid documentary, nominated in the same category, which Movistar+ has just premiered: Cutting through rocks, directed by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni. You must get to know its protagonist, Sara Shahverdi. She will fascinate you with her personality and drive. Sara becomes the first woman elected councilor in her rural village in northwestern Iran. She is a midwife, an activist for women's rights, and a tireless worker. The documentary begins by showing how, all by herself, she fixes a large iron door using an angle grinder. She also uses the trunk of a tree to level the doorframe and make the lock fit. The determination with which she will solve this problem will be maintained throughout the film. Shahverdi never stops: she advises women to claim their inheritance rights, coordinates village improvement works, gives talks at schools to encourage girls to continue studying, cares for her mother, fixes breakdowns, repairs her motorcycle... Even the viewer perceives a certain sensation of physical exhaustion just by seeing the energy she puts into improving the lives of others. The documentary is imbued with her strength.

Just as it happened with the summer of Barbie and Oppenheimer, when a couple of films become a mass phenomenon, one cannot resist the temptation to interpret them as a symptom of collective unease. Even more so when we talk about horror cinema: the more it hits the nail on the head in exposing a hidden malaise, the scarier the film will be and, therefore, the more successful it will be. That's why it has always been said that every horror genre is born from social unease: vampire films represent the fear that the rich will suck our resources, zombie films confront us with the impossibility of controlling the masses, haunted house stories exploit the dark side of the nuclear family, and so on. Well, with Obsession and Backrooms, two horror films made by very young directors that in recent weeks have broken all kinds of box office records and have dragged crowds of young people, whom cinema had given up for lost, to theaters, we can say that a new generation is beginning to put a face to its monsters.Although they are very different films, I think both should be read uninhibitedly as an expression of the unease that digital natives feel when relating to the real world in screen time, and that if they have been so successful among young people it is because they have managed to incorporate the anxieties of the internet into the medium of cinema. In other words, neither of the two films explicitly deals with the theme of adolescents hooked on the algorithm with the alarmist tone of a Sense ficció, but rather incorporates the anxieties into the texture of the artistic artifact, achieving that strange privilege that allows metaphors to reach places impossible for explicit language.

The essential and beloved Àlex Gutiérrez explained, to the Stop..., that there is a boycott campaignagainst the adaptation of the'Odyssey by Christopher Nolan because Helen of Troy will be played by a black actress, Lupita Nyong’o. We have seen the series The Bridgertons, set in the 19th century, featuring actors of different races playing high society characters, during a period when this was not the case. The series features excellent actors from all over the world, allowing for sales on five continents. We have seen Hamlets starring women, which is a much more substantial change than race.

There are many movies I haven't seen. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the tragedy, until confinement I hadn't seen Dirty dancing (what a marvel) nor Pretty woman. I wanted to take advantage of this series of articles to effectively fill some of my cinematic gaps. In an era of massive audiovisual supply and absolute atomization of channels, I cure my FOMO in deferred. This week I saw Blade runner for the first time.

There are many movies I haven't seen. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the tragedy, I didn't see Dirty Dancing until the lockdown (what a marvel) or, as incredible as it may seem, Pretty Woman. For someone born in 1990, turning thirty and never having seen Pretty Woman is like saying you've never heard La Bomba, or like having crossed the square at a brisk pace in the middle of a water fight and having your clothes completely dry. Well, it's possible. Pretty Woman! I like the triangle it traces with the universal Cinderella plot and how Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957) is its dark, fatal, bitter version. And yet, with an ending that illuminates the spirit with the force of a thousand suns.

The Tarragona-based filmmaker Anna M. Bofarull premiered on June 11 at the International Catalan Film Festival (FIC-CAT) in Roda de Berà her latest film, Rebel, a documentary with the 1-O referendum as a backdrop and starring Marta Torrecillas. Torrecillas was one of those attacked by the Spanish police, and images of her being dragged by officers down the stairs of the Pau Claris institute in Barcelona went viral, along with her claim that her fingers on one hand had been broken one by one.

I don't know if it happens to you too, but I have the feeling that, lately, there is a worrying lack of empathy. It's as if we see the people around us, but we don't really look at them. We go so fast that, too often, we forget that everyone carries their own baggage.

Last week, actors Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci jointly received their respective stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The fact that they did the ceremony together is not only because they are co-stars in The Devil Wears Prada 2, but also for a second reason: they are technically family thanks to a love story that originated at the premiere of the original film. This is because in 2012, Blunt and Tucci became in-laws.

“There is a man in Spain who does it all”, sing Astrud in the opening credits of the documentary The Man Who Designed Spain, which premieres on Filmin this Fridaypremieres on Filmin. The lyrics fit the film's protagonist, José María Cruz Novillo, perfectly, who during the 70s and 80s renewed the iconographic imagery of post-Franco Spain. He was the creator of the logos for PSOE, Correos, Renfe, Repsol, Endesa, the newspaper El Mundo, Cope, the Community of Madrid, and even the peseta banknotes launched in 1978 and the blue of the National Police uniforms. But the most surprising thing is not that one man signed all this – and much more – but that most of it continues in use decades later, resisting the fads and trends of an ever-changing society. It is the most compelling proof of modernity: becoming a classic.

Film fans and die-hard Alfred Hitchcock admirers will find on Movistar+ a documentary that connects with the universe of Hollywood and one of the great films by the king of suspense: Vertigo. Alexandre Philippe, the director of the documentary, defines it as a session of cinematic spiritualism over which Hitchcock's spirit hovers. The protagonist is the actress Kim Novak. At ninety-three years old, she feels she is in the final stretch of her life. As soon as it begins, the camera moves gently through a garden where the last ray of sun of the day arrives. We hear her with a thin voice and difficulty breathing. Novak explains: “I doubt if I'm doing the right thing by recording this, because I don't know what will come out of what I say, of what I want to say. What do I want to say exactly? Is it about this? About what I want to say? About what I think? About what I feel? I don't know what I'm expected to feel or think. [...] I have suffered a lot. Recently I had a bad fall and I'm short of breath. It's hard for me to keep breathing. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll live to be a hundred! Who knows! But right now I feel like I'm very close to the end”. The camera moves closer to the door of a house and penetrates inside. The image stops on the wooden volute of an armchair that reminds us of Novak's bun in Vertigo. Then, finally, we see her, painting a picture.

The Good Daughter, by director Júlia de Paz (Sant Cugat del Vallès, 1995), can now be seen in cinemas. It shows the consequences of vicarious violence and sexist violence on children, who are often unrecognized victims. And it does so through Carmela, a 12-year-old girl, who must periodically go to a meeting point to see her father, whom she idolizes. Little by little, however, the girl – and with her, the viewer – will discover who he really is and his way of exercising psychological violence.

What do localities like Tossa de Mar, Cardona, Bielsa, or Aýna have in common? Well, among other things, their undeniable tourist appeal, but also the fact that they have been the setting for landmark films such as Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Chimes at Midnight, Palmeras en la nieve, or Amanece, que no es poco. These are four examples of locations that fit perfectly into what is known as screen tourism, a type of cultural tourism that drives visits to destinations, landscapes, or cities that have appeared in or are related to films, television series, or audiovisual productions of all kinds, such as documentaries, video games, or commercials, as well as events linked to the audiovisual world, such as festivals or themed gatherings. It is an upward trend that has been experiencing significant growth since the advent of streaming platforms and leads viewers to visit the settings where their favorite stories were filmed.

We know Enric Sòria, one of the most valuable authors in contemporary Catalan literature, for his work as a poet, diarist, and essayist. Now he is releasing, at last, a singular work, which is also a major contribution to our culture: Et tornaré a veure(Apunts sobre cinema 1910-1945), which has just appeared in a superb two-volume edition by the Valencian Film Archive and the Alfons el Magnànim Institution. I write “at last” because I have had the good fortune to be one of the happy few who have followed the writing process of this book over the —many— years it has taken, and that authorizes me to say it: it is an important work.I'll See You Again brings together comments by Enric Sòria on films belonging to the period mentioned in the title, that is, from the beginnings of cinema as an artistic language until the end of the Second World War, with the transition from silent to sound cinema and the development of one of the most powerful cultural industries. The work offers a selection of these texts, but, even so, it is of somewhat overwhelming dimensions: twelve hundred pages divided into two volumes, with nearly nine hundred films commented on, ordered chronologically. There is cinema from everywhere, with a profusion of North American, British, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Japanese films, not necessarily in that order. The display of knowledge that the author pours into it on the subject he deals with is as spectacular as it is fascinating, and his writing, without a gram of pedantry or false erudition, has —as is its hallmark— the virtues of elegance, clarity, mastery of the language, and an irony that, fortunately, is frequent and achieves what is so difficult: to instruct and entertain the reader at the same time. They are texts of irresistible reading: it is difficult to stop at one and not want to continue with the next.In the illuminating prologue, Enric Sòria explains his personal —and familial— connection with cinema, emphasizes that it is an art that tends to abolish chance and, therefore, exactness, and stresses that it has been (often through the most unexpected means) a form of protest against the dictatorships and authoritarians that ravaged the first half of the 20th century, as they are also doing, for now, with the first third of the 21st. He also presents it thus: “From its origins, cinema is close to spectacles like illusionism, variety shows, and, above all, the circus: clowns, sword-swallowers, bearded ladies, acrobats, and lion tamers, but also other shows [...] like concerts, dance, theatre, and opera. Cinema did not just move between these two realms: it could encompass them, and that is what it has done.” Catalan culture counts and has counted, fortunately, with excellent film critics and scholars, but until now it did not have a work like I will see you again, the fruit of knowledge and literature, but also of pure passion, love, and fascination. A great party.

In the midst of the streaming era and omnipresent screens, a growing segment of youth is looking back. Vinyl records, cassettes, film cameras, or VHS tapes, formats that just a few years ago seemed doomed to disappear, are circulating again among young people as objects of cultural consumption and symbols of identity. Far from being a fleeting trend, the phenomenon reflects an increasingly complex relationship between the digital generation and the technology that dominates their daily lives.

While the rest of the morning magazines discussed the harsh disagreements within Vox, Espejo público echoed an apparently anecdotal event. Susanna Griso stopped her conversation with Albert Rivera, who is a political analyst for the program, to ask him if he had already seen Santiago Segura's film. The former leader of Citizens replied that he had it pending. The presenter explained that Santiago Abascal had indeed gone, and had been caught leaving the cinema. "Ok Diario surprises Abascal watching Torrente, president", said the headline on screen. But that exclusive from Eduardo Inda's digital media seemed anything but a surprise. It was clearly a staged event: it reeked of a pact between Vox and Inda. A reporter with Ok Diario's microphone at the entrance of the room reported: "In a few moments, Santiago Abascal will leave the cinema after watching Torrente, president and we didn't want to miss his reaction". Immediately, Abascal appeared accompanied by a large group of men cut from the same cloth: the beard, the haircut, the clothes and the body rigidity that characterize them. The henchmen surrounded the leader of Vox, suspiciously controlling the area, and Abascal quickly approached the reporter's microphone. The supposed humor of that situation is that Santiago Segura's film parodies Vox with Torrente at the helm.

Four years after its finale, Peaky Blinders, the fiction about a group of Birmingham gangsters, returns to the screens. Now, however, it does so not in series format but as a feature film. Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man premieres on Friday on Netflix with much of the original cast, led by Cillian Murphy, an Oscar winner for Oppenheimer. The Irish actor once again takes on the role of Thomas Shelby, the charismatic mobster whom viewers accompanied as he managed illegal betting, arms trafficking, and horse racing, and fought against other mafias. The series ended with Shelby imposing exile on himself, and this is precisely the starting point of the film written by Steven Knight, creator of the original fiction.

How does the son of Mallorcan farmers manage to walk the runway at New York Fashion Week and be considered John Galliano's successor? Why does this protégé of the fashion press end up thrown to the wolves? We asked ourselves these same questions in this very newspaper exactly eleven years ago in the wake of Call it a balance in the unbalance (2011). An epic story with a dramatic ending in which Regine Lettner delves, through the experiences of designer Miguel Adrover, into an industry capable of destroying myths as quickly as it builds them. This documentary was part of the first edition of Moritz Feed Doc, Barcelona's international film and fashion festival, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year by, coincidentally, revisiting the fascinating and enigmatic figure of Adrover. On this occasion, it does so through The designer is dead (2025), a documentary by Gonzalo Hergueta focusing on the life and artistic trajectory of one of the most consistent and radical personalities in contemporary fashion. This Adrover is the same Adrover who, more than two decades ago, was already speaking about sustainability and multiculturalism, when these concepts were not yet widely understood. mainstreamThis is similar to how, a few months ago, he refused to dress Rosalía de Lux because the singer wasn't using her platform to denounce the Palestinian genocide. For Adrover, fashion should be understood not only as a cultural artifact but also as a political one.

The 98th Academy Awards have crowned One battle after another like the big winner of the nightThe film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson gradually gained prominence throughout the ceremony, becoming the dominant name of the awards, which were marked by its overall success. The gala also featured musical numbers and some moments of protest, despite being rather tame and lacking in activism.

Pere Garcia (Girona, 1946) knows the secret to enduring 42 years in a job as a payroll specialist, a job he absolutely hated and which he readily describes as odious. He handled payroll and employment contracts. His was a particularly unpleasant department because "I always had to side with the company owner," and if an employee ever came to me, "I also had to agree with them and navigate any conflicts." He acknowledges that his loyalty to the company, which began at age 16 after finishing secondary school, was also largely due to the fact that the company, the prestigious Cànovas consultancy in Girona, "was excellent, as were the owners, department heads, and colleagues." However, the determining factor in his long tenure was his great passion for his leisure time: musicals.

It made a lot of sense for the guest of honor at the Barcelona Restoration Guild's party to be actor Alberto San Juan, who has just been nominated for a Goya for his performance in La cena. And it was precisely this film – which humorously recreates a fictional dinner of Franco two weeks after winning the Civil War – that led the Madrid-born actor to use the podium of the mythical La Paloma venue in the Catalan capital to launch a forceful "no to war." San Juan received a standing ovation from the five hundred attendees at the meeting, including actors, politicians, and restaurateurs, with his call "against this new world order where those with the greatest capacity to impose violence now lead." He reviewed the bombings in Iran and the "genocide of Gaza," among other things, and delivered a harsh criticism of the European Union and its "renunciation of defending the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."