Cultura

After years of cinematic uncertainty, announced projects that never came to fruition, and a franchise increasingly focused on the Disney+ platform, Star Wars returns this Thursday to the big screen with ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu,’ the film set to open a new chapter for the saga beyond the Skywalker universe. The film also marks the return of two of the most popular characters to emerge in the last decade within the franchise: Din Djarin (the human Mandalorian warrior) and Grogu (the alien Baby Yoda).

If there is something that writers habitually do, more or less consciously, it is to be aware of what is happening around them. It doesn’t matter if they write historical or contemporary fiction: what they see and experience in the present ends up permeating their texts. That is why it is not surprising that in recent times several books have been published in which aesthetic pressure and terms like botox, skincare, preventive aging, or wellness permeate their pages.

Barcelona has a supercomputer that not only processes billions of numbers, simulates the climate, or analyzes DNA sequences. It also puts all its potential at the disposal of artists so they can translate that entire amalgam of data and cold codes into tangible works that can be felt, seen, and heard. But also, and unlike other technological centers, so that artists humanize technology and contribute to science through their work. This is made possible thanks to the Creative Intelligence Lab, a space created by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), where the Marenostrum 5 is located, one of the most powerful computers in the world.

Pedro Almodóvar returned this Tuesday to the Cannes festival to compete for the Palme d’Or with Bitter Christmas, seven years after Pain and Glory, and the reception could not have been more emotional. “I am speechless, very moved. It is difficult to speak in this situation, but I recognize that of all the audiences I know from the screenings of my films, the viewers in this great hall are, I believe, the warmest and most affectionate I have ever known,” he said with great emotion after the screening of his new work in the grand Lumière theater.

An excited Montserrat Torrent made her way this Monday through the half a thousand people who filled the Oratorio Sant Felip Neri after having realized the dream of her life: the musical baptism of the instrument that bears her name and whose construction has been delayed for six decades. “It has been extraordinary,” she said after offering a concert in dialogue with the poem that Narcís Comadira has dedicated to the new Montserrat Torrent organ. Surrounded by the performers who premiered the organ made by Albert Blancafort with her, the centenarian artist added: “There will be many concerts. There will be many joys.”

The site was called the Garden of the Fugitives. You can already imagine why. In the year 79 AD, when Vesuvius had already been erupting for hours, fourteen people tried to cross this ancient vineyard, looking for an exit through the Nocera Gate. The pyroclastic flow caught them and none escaped alive.

A total of 92,000 visitors have walked through the Comic Barcelona fair from Friday until today, Sunday. A figure slightly lower than the 110,000 of the previous edition, partly due to the change of pavilion because of construction work inside Fira Montjuïc. That does not take away from Meritxell Puig, director of Ficomic, the organizing entity of this event, feeling “satisfaction” with how things have gone this year and with the sweet moment that comics are experiencing. “More families than ever have come,” she told La Vanguardia while recalling that this 2026 is the year they have had the most authors, both national and international, and the most publishers from different parts of the world, who “have been able to see the talent that is cultivated here, which is no small thing.”

Five days after publicly announcing that she had terminal cancer, British soprano Felicity Lott has passed away at the age of 79. The singer, who had been ill for a year, had recently announced that she would donate some of her costumes for a charity auction intended for a palliative care center, where she was also informed that the disease was progressing without remedy.

Javier Bardem has expressed words of gratitude to the Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty, who at the press conference of the jury members of the official section of the Cannes festival, defended that the Spanish actor, like Susan Sarandon and Mark Ruffalo, raised their voices publicly in support of Gaza and harshly criticized the American industry for the alleged professional reprisals against the three actors. “I sent him a message through a mutual friend thanking him and also Laverty has always been an artistic and personal reference,” the Oscar-winning actor confessed to a small group of journalists during an interview about his role in El ser querido, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, which is competing for the Palme d’Or and is officially presented this afternoon at the French festival.

As is tradition, the Sitges festival has presented at the Fantastic Pavilion of the Marché du Film at the Cannes festival the poster for its upcoming edition, the 59th, which will pay tribute to the 50th anniversary of the release of Carrie, a film directed by Brian de Palma, based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King and starring a young Sissy Spacek as a shy teenager who lives with her mother, a religious fanatic, and is constantly mocked by her high school peers. “The poster references Carrie, which will be the leitmotif of the festival, and the image, created again by the China agency, represents blood, adolescence, and also refers to prom nights, the party that ends so badly in the film,” said the festival director Ángel Sala to La Vanguardia, who recalled that the film was a huge success and influenced the portrayal of student rituals as transitional spaces to adulthood, where evil and supernatural elements infiltrate and alter the appearance of normality.