Culture

The 26^th edition of Girona´s Film Festival runs from the 15^th to the 19^th of July and will screen 175 films; a mix of feature films and short movies from 35 different countries. The festival will kick off with the restored version of Josep Maria Forn´s Los Culpables, shot in Girona in 1962. The event will also contain a new section entitled ´Made in Costa Brava Girona´, which will showcase new and old films shot in the north-eastern part of Catalonia. The festival is made up of 14 sections, six of which will include the presentation of non-monetary awards. Acclaimed Spanish designer, Javier Mariscal, will be a member of the judging panel.

In Girona there are 65 music festivals and more than 250 performances scheduled throughout the year. Often, however, these festivals are not marketed effectively abroad and there is a lack of international promotion. Therefore, the Costa Brava Tourism Board has facilitated the creation of a single brand, through a website that brings together all of the different musical delights on offer in the region, in order to make these events more accessible and better advertised. For now, the site costabravagironafestivals.com gives the music festival programme for Girona, but has a goal to expand to include theatre, circus and dance events.

The director of the Dalí Theatre-Museum, Antoni Pitxot, stated on Monday that he does not contemplate changing the functioning of the museum in the event of Catalan independence. "I think there will be no conflict because the museum was created by Dali and an intelligent leader would never put any obstacles to the continuation of his great work" said Pitxot, who was a close friend of the artist until his death in 1989. Pitxot also stressed that the museum and its collection is "not divisible". In his last will, Salvador Dalí named Spain as the universal heir to his property, and the state negotiated with the Catalan government to leave 134 works of art in Figueres and bequeath 56 to Madrid.

In the last week of August, over 600 amateur actors from across the world will be descending on Girona for one of the liveliest dramatic art summer festivals, the International Festival of Amateur Theatre (FITAG). In the 14th edition of the festival, taking place from the 26-30 August, 33 performances will be staged over just five days, at various venues in the Girona capital and surrounding towns such as Figueres, Lloret de Mar, Palamós, Palafrugell, Maçanet Selva and La Jonquera. 15 of the participating theatre groups are local companies from Girona; a further 5 are from the rest of Spain and 11 are international. The aim of this year’s festival is to bring together the culture and theatre from different immigrant communities and strengthen international exchanges.

Six Catalan performing arts companies have introduced their projects at the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF) 2014 Showcase and a further three have taken part in the official program of the festival, thanks to the collaboration of the Culture Department and FiraTàrrega with GDIF. The 2014 edition of the renowned street arts festival will run from 20-28 June, showcasing some of the most interesting street theatre on the continent. Its director, Bradley Hemmings, told CNA that FiraTàrrega has "influenced the structure and development" of the show, one of the largest in the UK, and he was looking forward to receiving fresh Catalan projects.

Just 36.3% of Catalans have Catalan as their main language, according to a survey presented on Friday by the Catalan Ministry of Culture and the Catalan Institute of Statistics (Idescat). The survey examining language use in the population of 2013 found that 31% of the Catalan population had Catalan as their mother tongue and a slightly higher percentage usually converse in Catalan as their main language: 36.3%. Nonetheless, 55.1% of those surveyed reported having Spanish as their mother tongue, with 50.7% using Spanish as their main language. In 2003, 46% reported having Catalan as their main language, but this fell to 35.6% by 2008. Additionally, the report found that 94.3% of Catalans surveyed in 2013 could understand Catalan.

Sónar, Barcelona´s ‘Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art’ came to end on Saturday night with a total attendance of 109,000 people, the second best in the festival’s 21 year history. However, it is a 10% less than 2013 record figures. 53% of those attending the 2014 edition were foreigners. Sónar by Night on Saturday has claimed the ability to make the masses dance with a program marked by disco anthems from Nile Rodgers of Chic to performances by Rudimental and DJ Snake. Massive Attack were among the best performers of the night, in their second concert after the opening day. Multiple simultaneous stages with performances from some of the biggest names in electronic music gave national and international festival-goers a lot to choose from.

Sónar+D is an international conference for creativity and technological innovation which coincides with the Sónar by Day Festival. The conference will organize lectures, project exhibitions, stage activities and hold meetings with experts to enhance talent and further opportunities in the digital environment creating a strong parallel to the music festival. This year is the second edition of Sónar+D and the conference is growing now bringing together more than 100 companies, as well as artists, entrepreneurs and technicians from around the world to promote talent and business opportunities in the area of ??culture. The festival's co-director Enric Palau recently revealed details about this year’s program, which is a new initiative divided into four areas. An area dedicated to round table conferences, an exhibition area where more than 40 featured worldwide technology projects are to be on show, a space for art shows and an area where attendees can meet renowned professionals.

The 21^st edition of the International Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art Sónar 2014 is set and ready to take over the Catalan capital from the 12^th -14^th June. As in recent years, the festival will alternate between two different locations depending on whether it is a day or a night event. Fira Montjuïc is the location for Sónar by Day whereas Sónar by Night takes place in Fira Gran Via L’Hospitalet. In this way, the festival offers two different venues for the crowd, one for those who prefer a relaxing chill out in the Mediterranean sunshine and another for a greater party atmosphere as the night draws in. The two locations are ready to play host to the performances of a packed line-up made up of more than 130 artists, bands and deejays. With several stages and a program replete with star names, the Sónar crowd is in for a treat as top notch electronic musicians from all over the world will perform before a local and international crowd.

Promising Catalan architect Josep Alegre Torrents has presented his 'Arquitectures Empeltades' project to the 14^th International Architecture Exhbition held at the Venice Biennale, sponsored by the Ramon Llull Institute, the public body promoting Catalan culture abroad. "We want to show an attitude, a way of working to make the architecture relate and work with existing elements" explained Torrents, who said he wanted "to show the ways of doing things in Catalonia." It is the second time that Catalonia is participating in the Biennale International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. The current edition of this prestigious exhibition is entitled Fundamentals and is directed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. It will be open to the public from June 7 through to November 23, 2014.

The 2014 Primavera Sound Festival, taking place from the 28^th to the 31^st May in the Catalan capital, is offering more concerts in its largest-ever space with a capacity for 60,000 people per day. Most of the 348 concerts will be on stages distributed throughout the Forum Park, next to the sea and Sant Adrià del Besos' marina. Other artists are programmed in concert halls such as the Sala Apolo or Barts. Headliners this year include Arcade Fire, Queens of the Stone Age, Mogway and Caetano Veloso, among many other international artists. Furthermore, top Catalan bands such as Mishima will also be playing.

This year the Barcelona International Comic Fair celebrated its 32^nd edition by looking back at the golden age of superhero comics and the wars that shaped History. Organizers FICOMIC increased this year´s event space from 19,000 to 32,000 square meters, which resulted in attendance figures of 106,000 throughout all four days and an increase in sales of comics and other products. The Fair Director, Carles Santamaría, stated that “weare satisfied with the high participation of the audience in an edition that has beaten its record for space”. The festival was once again characterized by the presence of well-known names of the comic universe, such as Spanish artists Paco Roca and Francisco Ibañez, Canadian Ramón K. Perez and Maltese Joe Sacco.

Barcelona's Sagrada Familía Basilica and Museum and Figueres' Salvador Dalí Theatre-Museum topped Catalonia's visitor rankings with 3.18 million and 1.58 million respectively.  In total, 21,593,992 people visited Catalonia's museums and collections during last year. FC Barcelona's Museum came in third place with 1.51 million people, followed by the science museum CosmoCaixa (1.25 million) and the temporary exhibitions' centre CaixaForum Barcelona (979,000 people). The last two are owned and managed by the Catalan savings bank La Caixa. The Art-Nouveau buildings designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí La Pedrera and Casa Batlló are also among the highlights, with 973,000 and 796,000 visitors respectively. Barcelona's Picasso Museum (915,000) and the Joan Miró Foundation (911,000) are also among the most popular art centres.

The Trapezi International Circus Festival was a success with more than 100,000 visitors in its 18^th edition, thanks to the evolution of the event. This year, after two editions affected by the economic crisis, Trapezi changed its goals and presented a festival focused on new languages and techniques. Jordi Gaspar, the Artistic Director since 2012, has been an essential part of this evolutionary process bringing new creative companies to the fair and conserving the more consolidated ones. Also he has increased the number of Catalan companies to the detriment of international ones with the aim of creating a showcase of Catalan proposals without leaving behind the importance of international circus trends.

Trapezi, the main circus fair of Catalonia, which takes place in Reus from the 8^th to the 12^th of May, is bringing more than 36 theater and circus companies, performing more than 80 shows. With 24 domestic proposals and 11 international ones, Trapezi is filling the streets and theatres of Reus this month with different shows and a great diversity of spectacles. The aim of the fair is to internationalize the Catalan circus factory and to promote meetings among all those involved in the event. The Catalan Government wants to turn Trapezi into a professional event and make it a tool for projecting Catalan circus troupes all over the world. Throughout this edition the organization is emphasizing innovative performances and new formats.