7th Catalan Film Festival at UMass: New. Catalan. Women. Cinema

The 7th edition of the Catalan Film Festival features a selection of films directed by women and ranging from the mainstream such as Isabel Coixet to independent cinema like Neus Ballús.

Blog

• Directed by Elena Trape.
• On March 3rd at 6:30 pm.

Blog is the surprising tale of a group of teenagers, 15 year-old middle-upper class girls who are well educated, smart, sensitive and savvy. A group of youngsters with a secret plan and a shared purpose, something they believe to be an absolute goal and a universal truth: the need to experience strong emotions to set them apart from the rest.

Another Me

• Directed by Isabel Coixet.
• On March 10th at 6:30 pm.

A teenager finds her perfect life upended when she’s stalked by a mysterious doppelganger who has her eyes set on assuming her identity.

Sévignè

• Directed by Marta Colletbò-Coll.
• On March 24th at 6:30 pm.

Sévigné is a story which shows how two women come together. The life of Júlia Berwowitz, a prestigious theatre director based in Barcelona, takes an unexpected turn when she decides to produce a play based on Madame de Sévigné. Júlia will have to chose between her husband —a respected and influential reviewer, her lover —the attractive programmer of National Public Theatre and the unpredictable female writer of the play about Madame de Sévigné.

La plaga

• Directed by Neus Ballús.
• On March 31st at 6:30 pm.

• Filmmaker Neús Ballús in attendance to the screening.

Raül, a farmer that tries to grow organic food, hires Iurie to help him in the fields. Iure is a Moldavian wrestling fighter, but in order to earn a living he has to work in whatever it comes. Slowly, their personal histories intertwine with those of three solitary women: Maria, an elder that has to leave the country house where she has always lived to join a retirement home; Rose, a nurse from Philippines who just arrived into the country; and Maribel, a prostitute that has less and less clients.

Nedar

• Directed by Carla Subirana.
• On April 7th at 6:30 pm.

In her first full-length film, the director reflects on the loss of family and collective memory. The film maker succeeds in giving her personal quest a moving universal meaning. Subirana grew up in a world of women. Her anti-Franco grandfather was executed in 1940 after the Spanish Civil War for committing three armed raids. When Subirana embarks on her quest for truth in this issue that has always been surrounded by silence, her grandmother already has Alzheimer’s disease and her mother is suffering from the same ailment. In her film, Subirana compares the creative process, that lasts for years, with swimming underwater in danger of drowning.

Tots volem el millor per a ella

• Directed by Mar Coll.
• On April 14th at 6:30 pm.

One year after suffering a horrible traffic accident, Geni is ready to resume her life… or at least that’s what her family wants to see. The truth is that despite trying to please everyone, Geni feels unable to live up to expectations: her life before the accident no longer interests her. Why resume it then? The confusion that this creates causes her behaviour to become increasingly more erratic and leads to a single idea that begins to grow within her: escape.

Barcelona, abans que el temps ho esborri

• Directed by Mireia Ros.
• On April 21st at 6:30 pm.

This is the private life of a high society family, the Baladias, showcasing the golden years of a cosmopolitan and cultivated bourgeoisie. A personal and ironic portrait of Twentieth Century Barcelona through the memories of one of its heirs, Javier Baladía. Remarkable families, prolific entrepreneurs, exquisite, fearful and wasteful individuals. We will discover with all of them their passion and indifference. We will discover the Barcelona which attracted Nijinsky, Barbara Hutton, Richard Strauss, Gardel. And we will revisit the city in which architects such as Gaudí or Puig i Cadafalch competed to design buildings for the wealthiest and managed to dazzle the world.

All movies are shown in their original versions with English subtitles. Related to the courses Catalan Culture and Catalan Cinema and only for academic purposes.