There wasn’t so much nervousness among Barcelona moviegoers since Werner Herzog came. Next January, Béla Tarr, the legendary Hungarian director of films such as Sátántango (1994), his 450-minute opus magna, or The Turin Horse, the last film he shot before retiring from directing, will be in the city. in 2011. Tarr, who has just received the honorary award from the European Film Academy, will give two master classes for ECIB students and will hold a meeting with the screenwriters participating in the Script Residency of the Catalan Cinema Academy. Anyone who wants to get started in Tarr’s (not easy) cinema can do so at Filmin or take advantage of the screenings that will take place during the month of January at the Zumzeig and the Filmoteca. On January 14 they show Sátántango at Filmo: it starts at 4:00 p.m., so the brave attendees can count on leaving the room almost at midnight, perhaps with their lives changed forever, perhaps with a little hunger and thirst.

DENY THE PAST

Although the categories between audiovisual products are increasingly blurred and what is considered an ideal career for an actor today is to combine blockbusters with authorial projects (what is said to do a Paul Mescal), there is still a certain journey in the desert for the performers who want to complete their Robert Pattinson runway, that is, go from teenage idol in a commercial franchise to a respected actor in festival projects. They are recommended to be generous with their past. Do it more like Charles Melton, who in May December holds his own against Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, and less like Jacob Elordi. Melton has said that for him participating in the soap opera series Riverdale was like going to Juilliard, the prestigious acting school where Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac among a thousand others went. On the other hand, Elordi, who reaps the benefits of his role as Elvis in Priscilla and his role in Saltburn, has renounced the teenage films that made him famous, The Kissing Booth franchise on Netflix, of which he has said: “those “Movies are ridiculous.”

AND NOW COMES SPOTIFY

The book industry has been dealing with the effects of a single megacorporation, Amazon, for a decade and a half, and is about to take on its next tech giant, Spotify. Kim Scott, a self-help author from the business sector who in the past worked as an executive at Google and Apple, recently signed an interesting (and somewhat terrifying) article in The New York Times in which she warns about what is coming. For a few months now, Spotify has been offering its subscribers in the United States 15 hours of audiobooks included in the pack and has therefore begun to act as the largest distributor of audio books. The result in the long run may be very similar to what has already happened with music: greater concentration and very few authors taking 99% of the dollars. In the first months, users have already noticed the algorithm’s insistence that they listen to Britney Spears’ biography, whether they wanted to or not. Another small detail of Spotify’s draconian contracts is that the authors of the books and the actors who read them, if there are any, only get paid if the user finishes the book in its entirety, not if he listens to a fragment.

AFTER K-POP, K-DRAMA

A few days ago, Netflix, which was always accused of information opacity, released a huge amount of data on viewings of its programs, from which experts are still drawing conclusions. One of the main ones is the unstoppable advance of the so-called K-drama, which is encompassing Korean dramas and reality shows, and which would be the great sensation in popular culture after K-pop. Series such as The Glory and Doctor Cha and competitions such as Physical: 100 rival in global reach titles in English with large investments behind them. According to several articles in Variety and the Los Angeles Times, actors and scriptwriters in the Korean audiovisual industry are beginning to be tired of being Netflix’s cheap content factory and are considering demanding payment of the famous residuals (one of the workhorses of the strikes). of actors and screenwriters this year) and better compensation.

TIPS FOR ‘RECEIVING’ FROM JOAN CRAWFORD

New Year’s Eve is approaching and many will organize parties at home. It’s always a good idea (or not) to follow the advice of Joan Crawford, who wrote the following in her book My Way of Life: “The best parties are a wild mix of people. Take a few corporate presidents, add a bunch of adorable young actresses, a bearded painter, your friends visiting from Brussels, a politician, a hairdresser and put them all together. It is especially important to have people of all ages. Of course I don’t want hippies who come with their feet dirty but all the young people I know are bright and attractive and dress like human beings. Another important party secret is to always add a splash of vodka to everything. Nobody finds out and everyone ends up having a great time.”