Theatre, literature and music come together in September premieres at CaixaForum+
- Documentary feature film: More Than a museum
- Original documentary series: Periodistes
- Original documentary series: What are you watching?
- The month of the return to the classroom
- New Operas: Gran Teatre del Liceu
Art will make its way to Barcelona in September. Exclusive premieres, documentary series, talks with iconic journalists of our country, and operas will take place in the most emblematic places of Barcelona.
Documentary feature film: More Than a museum
Exclusive premiere on 13 September
On 13 September, the platform exclusively premieres the feature-length documentary More Than a Museum (Morrosko Vila-San-Juan, 2024), produced by Monsieur Alain with the participation of CaixaForum+.
In 2008, Oslo launched a major international competition for the construction of the new Munch Museum. Against all odds, it was won by a small Spanish studio, Estudio Herreros, the only one to propose a high-rise building. This documentary tells the story of a different and risky project that lasted more than twelve years, redefining the concept of the contemporary museum and was a key element in the great architectural and urban transformation of the city. Some of the participants in the documentary are Juan Herreros and Jens Richter, architects of the Munch Museum; Tone Hansen, director of the Munch Museum; Jenny B. Osuldsen, architect of the Oslo Opera House; and Einar Hagem and Marius Mowe, architects of the Deichman Library.
The premiere of More Than a museum will take place on Thursday 12 September at 7 p.m. at CaixaForum Barcelona, followed by a talk with Juan Herreros and Jens Richter, architects of the Munch Museum, and Morrosko Vila-San-Juan, director of the documentary.
TECHNICAL DATA / Title: More Than a Museum / Country and year: Spain, 2024 / Format: Feature-length documentary, 64 minutes / Director: Morrosko Vila-San-Juan / Production: Monsieur Alain SL and Morrosko Vila-San-Juan / Executive production: Yolanda Blázquez and Morrosko Vila-San-Juan, with the participation of CaixaForum+ / Script: Yolanda Blázquez and Morrosko Vila-San-Juan / Director of photography: Matilda Vidal de Llobatera and Enric Juste / Original soundtrack: Andreu Jacob / Post-production:Antaviana / Post-production director: Bernat Aragonès / Graphic design: Alicia Guillén and Javi Revuelta
Original documentary series: Periodistes
Premiere on 17 September
Tuesday 17 September sees the premiere at CaixaForum+ of Periodistes, a new original documentary series produced in collaboration with the Col-legi de Periodistes de Catalunya, which aims to collect and document the professional experiences of communicators who have left their mark on journalism.
Over the course of ten episodes of around 50 minutes, Albert Om interviews in Periodistes ten outstanding professionals in Catalan journalism over the last few decades. In this first season, the protagonists of Periodistes are Jordi Évole, Gemma Nierga, Ramon Besa, Tura Soler, Josep Cuní, Esther Vera, Josep Carles Rius, Cristina Gallach, Lluís Permanyer and Txell Feixas.
Through this project, the Col-legi de Periodistes de Catalunya, with the support and collaboration of CaixaForum+, seeks to preserve the knowledge, vision, and achievements of the journalistic collective, as well as to share them with the public. The aim of the initiative is none other than to preserve and give value to the history of journalism, serving as an educational and inspirational resource for future generations, and contributing significantly to the preservation of the cultural and professional heritage of journalists in Catalonia.
On Monday 16 September, at 6.30 p.m., the presentation of Periodistes will take place at the Col-legi de Periodistes de Catalunya (Rambla de Catalunya, 10, Barcelona).
Original documentary series: What are you watching?
Premiere on 26 September
On 26 September, a documentary series by PHotoESPAÑA, produced by La Fábrica and CaixaForum+, to learn how to read images, premieres exclusively on the platform ¿Qué miras?
The project, created by María Santoyo, has the collaboration of the Magnum Photos agency and a cast of eminent photographers and visual artists such as Joan Fontcuberta, Paloma Navares, Emilio Morenatti and Tanit Plana. They are joined by the voices of different experts such as the palaeontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga, the poet Mario Obrero, the art historian Eugenia Tenenbaum, the dancer Agnès López-Río and the researcher Emilio Papamija, among others. The narration is by the actor Carolina Yuste.
The series, aimed at all audiences, with a special focus on teenagers and young people, aims to promote knowledge of visual language through testimonies, analysis, and reflections by those who generate images, those who work with them or those who consume them. From an open, inclusive, and choral point of view, the series invites viewers to look at images carefully, to read them without prejudice and to go deeper into their understanding and expression, focusing on the serious issues that concern today's society.
The five episodes of this first season of What are you looking at? address the following themes:
- Fake (Lies and Manipulation), with Joan Fontcuberta: Photography was originally associated with an objective and truthful representation of reality. However, its history is linked to manipulation, appearance or even outright lies. How do we distinguish deception in the age of deepfake? How do creators use falsehood as a tool to question our increasingly informed and yet increasingly gullible society?
- Self (Identity), with Alexander Apóstol: In an era dominated by digitalisation and economic globalisation, and in a hyper-connected world, the big question addressed by all areas of art today is identity: Who am I? Do I belong somewhere? Who are my peers? What is my homeland, my territory, my community? How do we distinguish and preserve ourselves? The question of identity is currently traversed by a decolonial, transversal gaze, where the individual looks to the self, or to the sum of selves in the community, for an answer.
- Secrets (Intimacy, nudity, sexuality), with Paloma Navares: The nude, particularly the female nude, is a classic genre that photography inherited from painting. The representation of the body and the female condition has been subject to stereotypes that persist today. Is it possible to de-eroticise the image of the female body? Can photography represent intimacy beyond voyeurism? Can it transcend the skin to express emotions?
- Crisis (Conflict, abuse, power), with Emilio Morenatti: Documentary photography and photojournalism have made it their business to make us participants in the main conflicts of our contemporaneity, shaking our conscience and avoiding the omission or forgetfulness that affects the most disadvantaged. However, the codes of war photography have changed: how to approach violence through the image?
- Love (Love, friendship, family ties, etc.), with Tanit Plana: What does love mean today? During questioning the codes of Western romantic love, the image allows us to express the fundamental bonds of our society: family, friendship, affection, sex. They may be diverse, but it is these bonds that best define our human condition.
The premiere of ¿Qué miras? will take place on 25 September at Matadero Madrid. The series, with five 25-minute episodes, will premiere exclusively at CaixaForum+ between September and December 2024.
The month of the return to the classroom
From 1 September
September is the month of the return to the classroom at CaixaForum+, where every month we will be able to enjoy two outstanding titles from the history of cinema. This month only, and thanks to the collaboration with A Contracorriente Films, we are offering you the documentary To Be and To Have (Nicolas Philibert, 2002) and the feature film The Classroom (Laurent Cantet, 2008), winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
In The Class, François and the other teachers prepare for a new school year at a secondary school in a troubled neighbourhood. Full of good intentions, eager to provide the best education for their pupils, they arm themselves against discouragement. But cultures and attitudes clash in the classroom, a microcosm of contemporary France. However fun and stimulating the teenagers may be, their behaviour can nip in the bud the enthusiasm of a teacher who is not paid enough. François' tremendous frankness surprises his students, but his strict sense of ethics is shaken when the youngsters begin not to accept his methods.
The documentary To Be and To Have depicts the life of a small village class over the course of an entire school year, taking a warm and serene look at primary education in the heart of the French Landes. A dozen pupils between the ages of 4 and 10, gathered in the same class, are taught all subjects under the tutelage of a single teacher of extraordinary dedication. A master of calm authority, teacher Georges Lopez leads the children into adolescence, mediating their disputes and listening to their problems.
New Operas: Gran Teatre del Liceu
The collaboration between CaixaForum+ and the Gran Teatre del Liceu brings two great operas to the platform next September: Macbeth and Tosca.
The coincidence at CaixaForum+ of Macbeth and the feature-length documentary Sleep No More, directed by Pedro Ballesteros, offers platform users a unique opportunity: to witness the creation process of Verdi's famous opera, which was stage directed by Jaume Plensa, and, at the same time, to witness the result.
The love story between Verdi and Shakespeare began with Macbeth, considered to be ‘one of the finest creations of the hand of man.’ Verdi was devoted to Shakespeare's work, and this is the first opera on which he based it. From the tragedy, he wanted to achieve ‘something extraordinary.’ For Jaume Plensa, tackling the Verdi-Shakespeare Macbeth has been a dream of his youth. When Gerard Mortier asked him in Salzburg which title he wanted to direct, he did not hesitate. He will have had to wait 25 years to make the dream a reality.
MACBETH / Composer: Giuseppe Verdi / Musical Director: Josep Pons / Stage Director: Jaume Plensa / Cast: Luca Salsi (Macbeth), Sondra Radvanovsky (Lady Macbeth), Erwin Schrott (Banco) / Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
In the original story of Tosca, set in Rome in 1800, Cavaradossi is a liberal, while Scarpia is the head of the Vatican police, a political agent in the service of the Pope's absolutist regime. If this were transposed to the present, Cavaradossi would then be a defender of individual emancipation and human rights, and Scarpia an accomplice of the intolerance represented by the fascist temptation. To consolidate this symbolism, Villalobos has decided to include characters, works of art and situations that reinforce the thesis that power is afraid of art, and art is right to feel threatened by power and to fight it.
TOSCA / Composer: Giacomo Puccini / Musical director: Henrik Nánási / Stage director: Rafael R. Villalobos / Cast: Maria Agresta (Floria Tosca), Michael Fabiano (Mario Cavaradossi), Željko Lučić (Baron Scarpia) / Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
