Catalan Cinema Brings Seven Titles to Cannes
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- Catalan cinema arrives at this year's Cannes with seven titles across the festival, including six features — Maria Martínez Bayona's "The End of It," Aina Clotet's "Viva," Diego Luna's "Ashes," Pegah Ahangarani's "Rehearsals for a Revolution," Laïla Marrakchi's "Strawberries," and Bruno Dumont's "Red Rocks".
- Catalonia's film ecosystem has grown into one of Europe's most trusted co-production partners on the strength of public investment that has ramped up since 2019, the ICEC's development-to-post-production support, and two established film schools — Pompeu Fabra and ESCAC — that feed fresh talent into the industry.
- "The End of It," a sci-fi drama starring Rebecca Hall, Gael García Bernal, and Noomi Rapace, was assembled by Spain's Fasten Films with the UK's Elation Pictures and Norway's Eye Eye Pictures — a cross-border structure producer Adrià Monés calls a potential 'case study' for navigating post-Brexit Anglo-Saxon financing.
- Inicia Films producer Valérie Delpierre says Spain and Belgium are now the most attractive co-production destinations in Europe because their systems are 'clear and secure,' while France's funding has grown more competitive and Italy and France are hard to crack for non-A-list filmmakers.
- Ikiru Films' "Viva," Aina Clotet's feature debut selected for Critics' Week, was produced entirely in Catalonia with backing from ICEC and public broadcaster TV3CAT, a project the team refused to 'force' into a co-production structure just to close financing.
- The Catalan Minority Co-Production Fund, launched in 2020, is part of a long-term public arts-administration strategy that Delpierre credits for the seven-title Cannes crop and warns the industry cannot take for granted.
Why it matters: Catalonia has converted sustained public-arts investment — starting with a 2019 funding ramp and a 2020 minority co-production fund — into a 'clear and secure' system that is now drawing projects away from France and Italy. The seven-title Cannes presence is the measurable payoff, and producers interviewed here say the next challenge is preserving that political commitment rather than the films themselves.
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