Cinema in Barcelona

Cinema and Barcelona have been connected for more than 100 years, concretely from 1896. Although Madrid was the first Spanish city where images were projected in movement, it did not mean that a decade later the Catalan capital was turning into the cinematographic reference point of Spain. In 1914 it already was the city that more movie theatres in the whole world.

Beginnings
The photographers of the city were those who endorsed the new art, whereas the political, intellectual and ecclesiastic sector proved to be more distant. The first Catalan films that were filmed came from the hands of Fructuós Gelabert, pioneer in directing Spanish films, as well as incorporating the genre of fiction into his film 'Riña en un café' (Argue in a café). He also designed the first shooting studio of the State and gave form to Films Barcelona and to Diorama, the first company with laboratories and proper cinema rooms. Narcís Cuyás, Margarida Xirgu, Josep Gaspar and Enric Giménez are other standout directors of this first cinema stage of Barcelona.

World War I
The European war was the first pothole which found the cinematographic business. In case of the Catalan industry, but, the biggest evil turned out to be the transfer of the sector to Madrid and Valencia after the coming of power of the general Primo de Rivera and the restoration of a dictatorship.

In this epoch cinema happened to be a secondary art, but it kept on introducing material. The first Spanish film with voice could be seen in 1929 and it was the Catalan 'Les caramelles de Josep Amich' (The Lollies of Josep Amich). The film maker Francesc Elias turned into the big drive of the sonorous cinema, where the actors were speaking in Castilian to be included in the major public and for the origin of the same actors.

Franco Dictatorship
Until the 30's Barcelona did not return to be the cinematographic capital again, although the Franco period forced them to change the name of all the cinema venues into more Spanish ones. In this period the directors that shone in Barcelona were Pardo Delgrás, Ignacio F Iquino, Miquel Iglesias and Julio Salvador.

In addition to being the first Spanish city in incorporating voice into mute cinema, Barcelona was also a pioneering in using colour, specifically in 1945. In the mid 60's, the nearby population of Barcelona Esplugues de Llobregat lodged the shooting of the spaghetti westerns that gave place to qualifications as 'Pistoleros de Arizona' (Gunmen of Arizona).

This era also was characterised by the censoring and the dubbing to Castilian of all foreign films.

Transition
Before the heyday followers of this new art, in 1975 Institut del Cinema Català was founded with the intention of encouraging Catalan cinema, which coincided with the stage of transition where the subject-matter of the movies expanded before the fall of the dictatorship. In a few years it became possible to reach the same level of creative freedom as in the rest of democratic countries.

Festivals
Cinema has managed to integrate completely with the city. The constant support that it receives from the moviegoers has made possible that Barcelona feature dozens of movie theatres and that during the year an endless number of festivals dedicated to the seventh art is celebrated like the Barcelona Asian Film Festival (BAFF), the International Documentary Festival of Barcelona (Docúpolis), the International Festival of Erotic Cinema of Barcelona (FICEB), that had his last edition in 2008; the International Festival of Short Films (Mecal); Digital Barcelona Film Festival (DiBa), with its emulation to reinvent cinema; the Alternative Festival, with the independent cinema as a priority; the International Festival of Jueu Cinema; Demonstration of African Cinema; the Festival of Political Cinema; and the International Festival of Cinema of Catalonia, in Sitges, with a programming centred on fantasy and terror films.