In-Edit: A Barcelona success story

BarcelonaThe 23rd edition of the In-Edit Festival, from October 23rd to November 2nd, brings 71 music documentaries to Barcelona's Aribau cinemas in a total of 115 screenings. This year's debut features Astrid Rousse as executive director and Toni L. Querol as artistic director. Uri Altell, one of the founders, continues to expand a project that has grown steadily since its first edition.

The new two-headed management maintains the DNA of In-Edit: stories that emphasize the power of music as a creator of individual and collective identities, displayed in the majesty and intimacy of the big screen. A must-see cultural event for Barcelona's autumn, we've selected three proposals, each from the state, national, and local levels.

Tribute to Antonio Flores

When Alba Flores turned 33, the age at which her father Antonio died, she felt the need to make peace and pay tribute to him. "Like permission to outlive him," says Elena Molina, the filmmaker who co-directed the documentary with Isaki Lacuesta, and who shares biographical traits with Alba: "We were both born in Madrid, the same year, and I also lost my father at a very young age." Lacuesta sums up the project this way: "It's the story of a daughter searching for her father. That wasn't there at the beginning. It emerged while we were working."

Alba Flores is the driving force, the driving force, and the producer of the documentary. "A tremendous artist and person," says Elena. "A splendid woman," Isaki emphasizes. Together, they worked on "very sensitive" material that wove a deeply emotional story. "Every conversation was a catharsis. What you always look for when filming, was happening here all the time," explains Lacuesta. The editing, led by Mamen Díaz, modulated and graduated all this emotional flow to prevent it from overflowing. "Many conversations were held on camera for the first time. The most media-friendly family in Spain needs the public to communicate," reflects Lacuesta.

It's a personal and family project, and therefore universal, "because we all have absences and unanswered questions." Elena adds that they go through painful places, but that "Antonio's light is revealed; it's a celebration of his life." Isaki explains: "He was a man with a life drive and a death drive, who spoke very clearly about his addictions. You wonder what the moral limits are when entering the intimate life of someone who is no longer with us."

Mythology surrounds the life and death of Antonio Flores. Molina and Lacuesta delve into it, guided by Alba and the material from an immense audiovisual archive, consisting of photos, texts, records, drawings, graphics, songs, and films. Flowers for Antonio explores the many facets of an enormously talented artist who died in tragic circumstances, at the height of his creativity and success, leaving much to be said.

The feat of Dausa

It premieres on October 26th The great madness, just one day before the first anniversary of the concert with which Joan Dausà sold out Madrid's Palacio Vistalegre. This was the challenge, born out of the euphoria of having sold out Barcelona's Palau Sant Jordi in January 2024.

"We wanted to put a little order into everything we experienced, like someone returning from vacation, with a light and funny romantic comedy tone. To tell the how, not the what," declares its protagonist. The majority of the audience were Catalans who had accepted the live challenge of going on an expedition to Madrid, in a "game with a touch of epic."

The documentary captures the sense of community, the excitement, and the energy surrounding this milestone, a challenge without a political undertone, but rather a "normalizing" one, yet with the air of a "historical event." Eleven thousand people singing in Catalan in Madrid has the dimensions of a feat, comparable only to that of great figures like Serrat or Llach. "They are different times; you can't compare them," Dausà points out.

The singer from Sant Feliu de Llobregat highlights Víctor Manuel's performance as "especially moving": "I grew up listening to him and other representatives of Spanish singer-songwriter music, which is why I feel very close to them and very comfortable singing in Spanish."

And now what? What's next? "Next year's tour, with a new and very ambitious repertoire, aims to bring the spirit of Sant Jordi and Vistalegre to every concert we do in Catalonia," he advances. London or Paris can wait.

Cloud Universe

Within the "Sons of Barcelona" section, the documentary that David Picó, writer and musician, dedicated to Víctor Nubla, a unique and multi-layered artist who passed away five years ago, stands out. "It's a declaration of love to a deceased friend. But I wanted to make a documentary long before that. And I wanted to do it with the Nubla spirit." The title itself is a declaration of principles. Victor Nubla Method of Interpretation by Victor Nubla"The Nubla universe is vast, and the documentary is a glimpse into this universe." The format is also faithful to the essence of its inspiration, with a fanzine aesthetic and a "punk drive."

Víctor Nubla was an extraordinarily prolific musician and writer. But he was also a producer, cultural manager, and anarchist. "He's a fascinating figure because he remains faithful to a very rich universe and doesn't want to move from counterculture to what we call culture, because that would destroy everything he wants to do and say," says the director.

Picó's goal is to spark interest in a key figure in the European underground, so that even people who have never had contact with experimental music find inspiration: "The Festival gives me a bigger window, that of cinema, by showing a smaller window, that of the Nubla underground, than when you open it."

Víctor Nubla was a cultured man, with a wealth of references, who "crushed with the will to create something new and avoid clichés." An artist who constantly avoided classification and cliché, as well as nostalgia. "He was very connected to the present and to emerging artists younger than him," says Picó.

As a human being, Nubla was "shy but a great connector." The director believes he protected himself from a world he had always found strange, often violent, and unsympathetic: "And since the world is always an interpretation of the world, why not interpret it in a comical or even surreal way?"

And it's precisely humor that makes some of his works, not always easily accessible, "for all audiences." Aside from the documentary, Picó recommends the posthumous book. Short biographies of famous people, as a gateway to the Nubla universe.