For a Barcelonan, daring to set foot in Park Güell in July and August must be an act of madness or a political manifesto, a reappropriation of urban space sacrificed to tourism. The MUHBA, the Museu d'Història de Barcelona, has proposed it, with several cultural proposals scheduled for summer evenings in the Gaudí park. On Fridays at 8:30 p.m. there are concerts (flamenco, jazz and Latin rhythms) and on Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m., movies. The Dones, patriarcat cycle programs films such as Spain again (1968), by Jaime Camino or the little-known Night of Red Wine (1966), by José María Nunes, in which a woman, played by Serena Vergano, walks through Barcelona after receiving an ultimatum from her lover.
WELCOME TO THE PALACE
One of Patrick Radden Keefe's portraits of the freeloaders and scoundrels in Thugs: True Stories of Swindlers, Murderers, Rebels and Impostors / Scoundrels. True stories about swindlers, assassins, rebels and malfactors (Reservoir Books / Periscopi), the titled The Prince of Marbella, also serves to get an idea of the scene of billionaire dealers on the Costa del Sol in the past decade (and probably also now). “There were Arabs, there were Dutch, there were British. Thanks to the laxity of the police and the short arc distance that separated it from Africa, the city became a paradise for smuggling (…) The Spanish authorities were not prepared for that kind of crime”, writes the journalist. Particularly evocative are Radden Keefe's descriptions of Mifadil Palace, the mansion built to his own glory by the arms dealer Munzir al-Kassar, who also made no great effort to hide where his fortune came from: the spectacular gate of the entrance is decorated with two rusty mortar shells.
SIMULTANEOUS GESTATION
This summer L'Altra has brought back a classic of memorial writing linked to food, El meu jo gastronòmic, by M.F.K Fisher, which also comes with a (sorry) delicious prologue by Maria Nicolau. The story of how Fisher wrote that voracious and hedonistic book, in 1943, in the midst of World War II, is almost as interesting as the book itself. Fisher had just been widowed from her second husband, the love of her life, who suffered from a degenerative disease, had to suffer a leg amputation and finally committed suicide, as recounted in the text. She later became pregnant out of wedlock while working as a comedy writer at Paramount Pictures. She then decided to check into a residence in Altadena, California, and tell all her friends and acquaintances that she was going to a secret place on a mission commissioned by the government. The real mission was to create both her book, which she completed in just ten weeks, and her daughter Anne Kennedy Parrish. She introduced her to everyone as her adoptive daughter and she never revealed who the girl's biological father was.
STORIES OF THE FIGHT FOR ABORTION
Given the current climate, it is not surprising that more and more stories are being told from fiction about the long struggle for women's reproductive rights. To documentaries like The Janes, about the clandestine network of women who guaranteed abortions in Chicago in the 1960s, and Las buenas compañías, the film by Sílvia Munt about the activists from Rentería who helped women cross into France in the early 1960s. 70 to guarantee them a dignified abortion, The Indignant Annie joins. This French series, which premieres on Movistar on July 18, tells the story of a woman, mother of two children, who wants to terminate another pregnancy and ends up getting involved in the feminist struggle of MLAC, the Movement for the Liberation of Abortion and Contraception. . It stars Laure Calamy.
THE VALENCIAN HOUSE OF THE ASTRONAUT
Beyond the Sea, one of the chapters of the last season of Black Mirror, which premiered at the end of June on Netflix, takes place in 1969, in the spectacular house of an astronaut, played by Josh Hartnett, who wanted to give his mansion a very vintage air of space. The house is not a set built for the occasion, but a real chalet that is in L'Eliana, 20 minutes from Valencia. It was built in the seventies by a local builder named Miguel Camañes, who commissioned it to the architect Pascual Genovés and it is said that Camañes originally intended for the house, of more than 1,300 square meters, to rotate on its axis. That did not happen, but he did install a giant indoor pool, Hermès fabrics on the walls and hundreds of details that seem to be taken from a Playboy of the time. The house, which remains almost intact, is rented for filming (for around 3,000 euros per day) and has been the setting for films such as The Substitute and many fashion campaigns, from Bottega Veneta to Palomo Spain.
