TOCATS DE LLETRA 2023

Screenplay and direction: Joan Villaplana and Ariadna Torres

Commissioned by the Tocats de letra Literary Festival for the 2023 edition entitled Music and Words, this video piece refers to the joint origins of music and poetry in the ancient world as a mnemonic to keep alive the collective accounts of his mythical worldview.

The video was made at the natural spring of Sant Pau de Manresa and the music that accompanies it are verses by the ancient Greek poet Sappho sung by Andrea Goodman with a composition by Eve Beglarian.

SMALL WORLD

Feature film.

Screenplay and direction: Joan Villaplana.

With the collaboration of Ariadna Torres.

The American concept of shopping mall has conquered Europe in the last decades. On the outskirts of the countryside towns have been created new cities of leisure and consumerism where a big supermarket is located in the center of the urban planning.

Traditionally, it was the temple, as the spiritual center, or the city hall, as the political center, that was located in the middle of the urban area in the historical cities.

Small World explores how these new urban territories are being used and how the once sacred Sunday is being appropiated in pursuit of consumption when that shopping mall is closed.

IN THE SHADOW OF TWO SHORES

Todos esos que tienes a la vista

son turba desvalida a la que se ha negado sepultura. El barquero es Caronte,

los que va llevando por las ondas han sido sepultados.

No le es dado pasarlos de esta ribera horrenda ni atravesar las olas

de su ronca corriente sin que encuentren primero sus huesos el descanso del sepulcro.

Cien años revolando vagan en derredor de esas orillas. Sólo al fin

se les admite y llegan a cruzar los remansos que tanto deseaban.

Virgilio, La Eneida (libro VI)

July

August

The boatman

September

October

November

In the Shadow of Two Shores is produced as a photo and video-art project. In these images we see the two shores of the Ebre River where the two Spanish fronts fought. We also see the landscapes in the different timings and different months as the decisive battle of the Spanish Civil War occurred.

The Ebre history extends beyond these tragic episodes. Over the centuries it has been a symbolical and uncrossed border of cultures, languages and death. As the Charon's trips, the greek mythological character who carries souls of the newly deceased to Hades, it appears the round trip of the last boatman in this region.

This project received a grant by the Cultural Department of the Catalan Government in 2008.

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Instituto Cervantes in Beijing (2017), Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai (2018) and China International Festival of Photography in Pingyao (2015).

ON BOTH SIDES

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En ambos lados (On Both Sides) was a commission by the Centro Cultural de España in Guatemala. A portrait of the Guatemala's community, living in Barcelona.

After meeting with a number of young immigrants, I took a portrait of them talking with their mothers back in Guatemala. When I travelled to Guatemala for the exhibition, I had the opportunity to take a portrait of their mothers – the person on the other side of the wire.