The 29th edition of La Alternativa, the Barcelona Independent Film Festival, kicks off on 18th November. This year, the video-essay Everyday Portabella (Portabella Quotidià), by Ramon Balcells, associate lecturer and doctoral student at Pompeu Fabra University, is taking part in the National Official Short Film Section. The piece was also part of the international festival Filmadrid last June.

The video-essay approaches the cinema of Pere Portabella, who, moving away from costumbrism, opted for an aesthetic and political conception of cinema, linked to the emptying of the classical narrative, silences and dead time. Based on archive images and following the text Un homme qui dort by Georges Perec, the short film explores the singular universe of the Catalan filmmaker and brings him into dialogue with images by Perec himself, Luis Buñuel, Chantal Akerman and Jim Jarmusch.

Portabella Quotidià will be screened on 23th November at 8.30 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), together with four other short films: Descartes (Concha Barquero, Alejandro Alvarado), Ponto final (Miguel López), Hueles (Alba Esquinas) and Hirugarren Koadernoa (Lur Olaizola).

More information: [email protected]