Cultura

Everything comes from Benito’s mind. It’s a unique case that we might never see again. He calls me and I say he’s crazy, how is he going to do this. But the impossible is what we want to do,” says Puerto Rican music promoter Alejandro Pabón to a captivated audience at the CCCB Auditorium. Pabón, with his ‘r’s turned into sonorous ‘l’s, explains how Bad Bunny’s 30 residency concerts in Puerto Rico were born, which the team, he confesses, “we code-named the Super Bowl, without knowing he would sing in it later.” Thirty performances that have shaken up industry models but especially his country, where, he lists, they have even brought dominoes back into fashion and made the government understand that music can be one of its great export products. Now they are creating open studios for young people.

Only a few days remain until Pope Leo XIV’s historic visit to Barcelona, and the preparations are already palpable in the air. The signage for the Popemobile’s route, the placement of flags on balconies, and the anticipation of a public eager to sing the visit’s anthem, Alza la mirada. Even the pontiff himself, it is said, has already mastered his blessing in Catalan.

A black and white drawing went viral on social media at the end of 2025, due to recent protests in Iran over the country’s growing economic crisis. It was a girl dancing as if there were no tomorrow while dreaming of the end of the dictatorship. Today this drawing has returned to the profiles of many users but for a different reason: the death of its author, Marjane Satrapi, at the age of 56.

As a small festival reduced to just four artists, Primavera Sound opened its 24th edition with an impossible combination to fit into any musical box other than the one that brings together those who enjoy going to concerts, especially when it is free. And indeed, the traditional Wednesday session brought together at the Fòrum the 30,000 lucky ones who got their pass at no cost to see in one go the indie of Wet Leg and the airy pop of Guitarricadelafuente, backed by none other than Yard Act and Ouineta, British punk flashes and local electropop. Harder to mix more in less space.

A band of gremlins has ravaged Barcelona tonight. The Scots Mogwai, who decided to call themselves that after the mogwais or “evil spirits” from Joe Dante’s 1984 film, have performed at Razzmatazz on the tour celebrating their thirty years of existence.

By now, there will be few owners of a ticket for Primavera Sound who have not drawn their own route through the 18 stages that this 24th edition will have, six of them large-sized. Pop, rock, electronic, folk, as well as any of their derivatives, will have their reference from June 3 to 6, and the following are a reflection that serves as a starting point to get to know the rest or, simply, to whet the appetite of those who cannot attend the Parc del Fòrum during Barcelona’s big festival week.

September 12, 2024. Robert Smith is at the Abbey Road studios in London. Smith has spent time here recently listening to the atmospheric mix of ‘Songs Of A Lost World’, The Cure’s first new album in 16 years. Today, however, he can be found in Studio 3, where, in an interview as rare as it is revealing, he will delve not only into this new record but also into the past and future of one of the most enduring and fascinating musical institutions of British rock.

Encarnació Bosch is 91 years old and lucky to have kept the same friends since she was 12. Of this group of six women, she claims to be the most mentally agile and, aside from genetic factors, she is convinced it is because she is a very active woman. “I sign up for anything,” she tells La Vanguardia by phone, as she cannot meet in person because “soon I see a friend, and tomorrow we are also going out.” Neither her age nor having a disability prevents her from getting up at 7 to go to tai chi classes or carry out a whole series of activities, including going to a museum from time to time. The Picasso is one of her favorites, especially after having discovered it in depth thanks to ArtGran, a social program promoted by the Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona whose goal is to reduce unwanted loneliness and improve the well-being of older people through art and culture.

The concept of European digital sovereignty has become popular. It is the democratic alternative to the technooligarchy of the USA and the dizzying and unsettling advance of China. The expression is beginning to infiltrate political speeches – at least, those of the leaders…

Josefina Molina (Córdoba, 1936), director of works such as Función de noche, Esquilache, or the series Teresa de Jesús, dedicated a good part of her life to demonstrating that the female perspective was not an exception in the history of cinema, but an essential part of it. A pioneer of Spanish audiovisual, the first woman to graduate in Directing from the Official Film School and the first filmmaker to receive the Honorary Goya, she turned each project into a claim for female freedom to tell their own stories. “To see the world in relief you have to have two eyes and Humanity has been one-eyed for too long,” Molina stated. The sentence ended up becoming the best summary of a life dedicated to broadening the perspective of cinema. The director passed away this Saturday in Madrid at the age of 89. The wake will take place at the Boadilla del Monte funeral home starting at 16:00 hours.