The Filmin platform premiered last Friday the documentary Isla familia, co-directed and starring Cubans Abraham Jiménez Enoa, a recognized –and persecuted– independent journalist, and Claudia Calviño, one of the leading producers of independent Cuban cinema. The feature film, which they recorded with their mobile phones and is the directorial debut for both of them, narrates how the couple decides to leave their country for Spain after strong repression and harassment by the Cuban regime. All while they await the birth of their first child.

Like the Russian writer Maria Stepanova, Maksim Ossipov (Moscow, 1963) would never have imagined that he would end up in exile. "I never would have thought that I would be teaching Russian literature in English in Amsterdam, but here I am," he explained in a interview on the ARAAuthor of short story collections such as The cry of the domestic bird (Club Editor, 2016), Rock, paper, scissors (Club Editor, 2022), and Kilometer 101 (Asteroid Books), Ossipov packed his bags and left the country shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began. In Russia, Ossipov was a cardiologist. In exile, he lives between Amsterdam and Berlin, writing and speaking about literature. He has just published a new book of short stories, After Eternity (Libros del Asteroide, 2026), translated into Spanish by Alejandro Ariel González. From his previous life in Russia, Osipov longs for his home, his parents' graves, his work as a doctor, and some friends. And above all, the feeling of being understood.

Journalist and writer Maria Stepànova (Moscow, 1972), a self-proclaimed great admirer of Mercè Rodoreda, had a bumpy trip to Barcelona, ​​where she is participating in the CCCB's international residency program. She experienced something similar to M., the protagonist of her book. Disappear (Angle / Cliff), translated into Catalan by Miquel Cabal Guarro. M. is an exiled writer who no longer writes and suffers many misunderstandings and setbacks while trying to reach a literary festival. There is a moment when she glimpses the possibility of freeing herself from her former life. She can get a job in a circus and be someone else. Is it really possible to get rid of one's own identity? Is it legitimate to desire it? What responsibility do we have for the atrocities committed in our country? Who owns a language? It is almost impossible to label. Disappear, It moves between essay, autobiography, and the absurd, and Stepànova's poetic voice resonates throughout. With a great sense of humor, the writer, who lives in exile in Berlin, raises many of the great questions of our time.

"The meager and absurdly idiotic meals, the hunger, a genuine and excruciating hunger that attacks the nerves; the lice, those little bugs that, if we could, we would eliminate in five minutes and against which we must sustain an exhausting and sterile fight. And the cold, that new enemy that has not been new, sharpens your nerves," wrote Pere Vives (Barcelona, ​​​​1910 - Mauthausen, 1941) to the poet Agustí Bartra on December 14, 1939. A little over a month later, on January 27, 1940, he sent him the last one. He would send his family one last one, from a prisoner-of-war camp, on June 22, 1941. After that, there was a long silence, because it was not until after the Second World War that Vives's mother learned that her son had died in October 1941 in Mauthausen, where he had been deported two months earlier. He never sent any letters from the concentration camp, and the only witness to how he died is the one left by his companion. Joaquín Amat-Piniella to KL Reich: had been given a shot of gasoline.

A year ago, the plan to pick up Carles Puigdemont and return him was a resounding success. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), who hadn't anticipated that the former president would not show up at the Parliament for Salvador Illa's investiture after his speech at the Arc de Triomf, were unable to arrest him. But one image nearly ruined the escape of the Junts leader on that sweltering August 8th. It was the one taken by Maria, who prefers to remain anonymous, aware that the photograph she took with her cell phone could have thwarted a carefully designed plan to avoid his arrest.

The first memory that Isabel Sarrà y Carbonell (Sabadell, 1935) has is a grey painted boat. It was the SS Massilia, which left the French port of La Rochelle on October 19, 1939, with a host of Spanish Republican refugees fleeing the war. They had already escaped Franco, and now it was their turn to flee Hitler. It was a journey on which a German submarine pursued them. Isabel remembers the trip sipping a Vichy in the elegant cafeteria of the Hotel Urpí in Sabadell, where she stays whenever she can return to her hometown. After decades living in Chile, in recent years she has been returning to Catalonia. She is one of the last Catalan exiles from the Civil War.

After in July of Last year he announced that he was leaving music And after months without giving interviews, Josep Miquel Arenas, known musically as Valtònyc, opens up in a long conversation in the new cultural magazine The Promotion, presented yesterday, Tuesday, in Girona. The quarterly, 114-page publication was born in the "record time" of just four months after the president of the El Foment Foundation, Candi Granés, entrusted journalist Andreu Mas with the management of the project.

On April 6, 1925, during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, Father Bartomeu Barceló i Tortella (Felanitx, 1888 - Barcelona, ​​​​1973) delivered a fiery pro-independence sermon in Girona Cathedral, which landed him in prison that same day—Holy Monday—and later. Throughout his life, Barceló was a priest committed to the language and to the entire nation, and he never retracted his words, despite the repression he suffered. Next Sunday, he will be honored and that historic event, which will mark one hundred years ago on Sunday, will be remembered. The event will take place on the steps of the cathedral at 12 noon and has been organized by the Association of the Agermanats of Girona and Mallorca.

After the Civil War was lost, Catalonia saw one of its greatest writers and intellectuals go into exile. Xavier Benguerel wrote that exile has no end and that the exile is forever. It is not easy to explain the exodus and the longing of thousands of Catalans who had to leave. Teresa Pi-Sunyer experienced it firsthand. She is the cleansing ofAugust Pi-Sunyer, who had to go into exile with his brothers, Carlos and Santiago. August Pi i Sunyer (1879-1965), a renowned physiologist and professor at the University of Barcelona; Santiago Pi i Sunyer (1893-1981), also a prestigious physiologist and professor at the University of Zaragoza; and Carles Pi i Sunyer (1888-1971), a trained engineer and politician, always hoped to return to Catalonia and live in their beloved Roses. Only Santiago returned to Catalonia (he was the youngest of the brothers and the least politicized) in the early 1960s.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Advocate General issued an opinion yesterday on the preliminary questions the Spanish Supreme Court had submitted and aligned itself with judge Pablo Llarena's theses. Here are the questions and answers about the implications of the latest European ruling on exiles.

Catalan exiles have received a first negative response from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), although it is not yet a final ruling. This Thursday the court's advocate general has issued his opinion – which is not binding, but it sets the trend for the case – on the preliminary questions Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena asked and, at first, agrees with him. Llarena is seeking to amend Belgian courts' rejection of former Catalan minister Lluís Puig's extradition and reduce European States' margin to reject a European arrest warrant. For the time being, Llarena has convinced the advocate general of the CJEU: Richard de la Tour says that Belgium cannot refuse a European arrest warrant because of the risk of violating the presumption of innocence – as it did in Lluís Puig's case – if the "systemic and generalised deficiencies" of the judicial system have not been proven on the basis of "objective, reliable, precise and duly updated data".

The Majorcan rapper Valtònyc was happy and also emotional as he left Ghent's Court of Appeal of Ghent this Tuesday after a very short hearing. The Belgian court again rejected his extradition to Spain, as the Spanish High Court has demanded for the last four years. The court had to examine his case for the second time, after the Brussels Court of Cassation upheld in part the appeal by the Spanish Prosecutor's Office. And that is why Valtònyc had to stand trial again in Ghent, this time by a different set of judges. The court only heard the case for insults against the Crown. Being a reconfirmation of a previous sentence, everything indicates it should be final. Nevertheless, the Belgian Prosecutor's Office can still appeal again in cassation, and that is why the musician has struggled to hold back tears during his statements to the press.

The Consell per la República already has a government, with Carles Puigdemont as its leader and an assembly of representatives with 121 seats, and now also a "free ministry of Foreign Affairs". The Waterloo-based entity wants to be nourished by "representatives from around the world" who will dedicated themselves to "explaining the Catalan conflict". They can be volunteers.

Parts of the independence movement felt discomfort at the very least after Catalan president Pere Aragonès's conference yesterday, which aimed to recover the movement's unity of action. JxCat agreed with the call for unity launched by the president, but reproached him for not sharing the content of the speech previously –which the president's office denies–, that he did not make specifics about his roadmap towards independence and that he made no references to the 2017 Independence Referendum. The party also interprets that Aragonès linked exile and pardons to negotiation with the State. Neither the pro-independence organisation ANC nor anticapitalists CUP were any more satisfied, but rather the opposite. In addition, the Spanish government has reacted coldly and still has not announced the date of the next meeting of the dialogue table, despite repeated requests from the president.

The last instance of the Belgian judicial system will decide on Tuesday, January 18 on the extradition of the Majorcan rapper Josep Miquel Arenas, alias Valtònyc, to Spain. The Court of Cassation in Brussels has therefore delayed the decision on the rapper, who is wanted by Spain for glorification of terrorism, insults to the Crown and threats, for another week. The Ghent Court of Appeal had already overturned the European arrest warrant at the end of December, but the Belgian prosecutor's office, on behalf of the Spanish one, decided to appeal to the last judicial instance, which is the one that will decide next Tuesday.

After the cold reunion between Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras on July 7 in the House of the Republic almost four years after the 2017 Referendum, this Friday the president and the vice president of the Government that led the 2017 Referendum have met again in the celebration of 60 years of Òmnium in Elna, in North Catalonia. The organisation wanted to symbolise the reunion of freed prisoners and exiles with the will to turn the page on the discrepancies in the bosom of the pro-independence movement and work out a joint strategy to prepare for the new onslaught with the State. The estrangement between Puigdemont and Junqueras, however, has become evident again with few signs of cordiality between the two.

Cold reception in Waterloo. The leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has arrived this Wednesday at noon to the House of the Republic along with former Catalan ministers Raül Romeva, Meritxell Serret and Dolors Bassa and former Speaker Carme Forcadell. But unlike when meeting president Pere Aragonès, former president Puigdemont has not gone out to meet Junqueras at the door for the usual photoshoot while greeting each other. A few minutes later, however, they left together with former adviser Toni Comín and rapper Josep Valtònyc to take a group photograph at the door. There was a group photograph, but not of the two pro-independence leaders alone.

Unexpected changed of tack by Catalan political exiles. This Thursday morning the former minister of Agriculture Meritxell Serret has returned to take her seat in the Catalan Parliament and regularise her situation before the Supreme Court. Exiled in Belgium since the declaration of independence in 2017, Serret has appeared before the high court accompanied by her lawyer to make herself available to the investigating judge, Pablo Llarena. The magistrate - through a judicial secretary - has decided to summon her on April 8 for questioning and has allowed her to be released in the meantime. At 6pm she is expected to arrive at her village, Vallfogona de Balaguer, where ERC has already convened a welcome rally in which she will be joined by Speaker Roger Torrent and the ministers Bernat Solé and Teresa Jordà.