Cultura

As effective in front of a camera as behind it, and with enough years of experience to present a film in a way that does not go unnoticed, last Thursday Tom Cruise arrived in person at the main theater of the Warner Brothers studios in Los Angeles to share with the press the trailer of Digger. The film, which according to the studio has cost 125 million dollars but unofficial data assures has already reached 200, marks the return of Alejandro G. Iñárritu to the screens four years after Bardo, and promises an unusual combination of delirious comedy, science fiction, and political satire.

The passing of Luis Goytisolo (1935-2026) decisively closes a golden age of contemporary Spanish novel. Here we speak of a solid and profound narrative, full of expressive and intellectual boldness. Born into a well-off family, Luis and his other siblings had to overcome the foundational trauma of their mother’s death, which occurred during a bombing in the Civil War. Perhaps that was the driving force behind his later dedication to writing, where Luis stood out early with ‘Las afueras’ (1958), a book of stories that announced much of his world: postwar Barcelona, seen partly from the bourgeois elites.

Few terms are as terrifying in this country as that of the bubble, whether it be the dot-com, the real estate, or now the festival bubble in a time that boasts having a thousand of them spread across the entire geography. The trickle of cancellations in recent months, crowned by the disappearance of the massive Reggaeton Beach Festival, which gathered 600,000 people in 12 cities, has inflated the debate at the same time that solo artist tours are increasing and residencies are arriving, such as those of Shakira or Bad Bunny, both in Madrid.

Someone referred to the Goytisolo as our Brontë.

The novelist and RAE academic Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona, 1935), National Prize for Spanish Literature in 2013, has died at the age of 91. The author of the monumental tetralogy Antagonía was the brother of the also great Barcelona writers Juan Goytisolo and José Agustín Goytisolo.

The singer Aitana and Antonio Díaz, El Mago Pop, have partnered to acquire the Aquitània theater in Barcelona, on Sarrià Avenue. The venue has about 325 seats and has gone through various uses in recent decades, especially as the headquarters of the Filmoteca de Catalunya for 20 years (1991-2011).

Burying babies with their fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, or brothers and sisters in the same grave has been common throughout human history. What is surprising, however, is that these children are buried with adults with whom they share no biological relationship. That is precisely what the first Christian communities in Sweden did during the Middle Ages.

All societies, explains British economist Tim Jackson (1957), cling to a myth by which they live. Ours is the myth of growth. Eternal growth that one day will solve all our problems. It is useful, he admits, when you have little. But in excess it begins to cause imbalances. “Human prosperity has to do above all with health,” he points out. And he believes that the myth of growth, driven by male economists who have focused on productivity, efficiency, and the invisible hand of the market, and who have left aside the “invisible heart of society,” the poorly paid work of women, has failed. Jackson, author of Post-Growth and emeritus at the University of Surrey, thinks it is time to change it. He publishes L’economia de la cura (Arcàdia), which will appear in Spanish at Paidós in October.

Now that cult directors like Christopher Nolan endorse the creations of YouTubers like Curry Barker and Kane Parsons – directors, respectively, of two horror films that are making a splash, Obsession and Backrooms – and others like Radu Jude highlight the explosion of creativity they find on TikTok instead of in cinema, it may be easier to look without prejudice at the broad world of content creators and recognize the possibilities of their new languages. In any case, there are awards that for five years have recognized the most relevant influencers, the Ídolo awards, organized by one of their most visible faces, Aida Domènech (Badalona, 1989), better known as Dulceida. And now those awards, which were born and have been presented year after year in Madrid – last year at Ifema, the city’s fairgrounds – are moving to Barcelona thanks to the support of the Generalitat and the City Council, and from their first gala on December 2 they hope to contribute to the renewed momentum that the audiovisual sector is experiencing with projects like Catalunya Media City at Tres Xemeneies and the construction in the Parc Audiovisual de Terrassa of the largest set in Catalonia.

The New Zealand actor Sam Neill passed away this Monday at the age of 78. The actor’s family, especially remembered for his leading roles in Jurassic Park and The Piano, explained through a statement shared on social media that Neill’s death in Sydney was “sudden and unexpected” without specifying the reasons. “Sam was surrounded by his family and passed away with the dignity that characterized his entire life,” his family wrote.