The month of April is festival time, in all areas. There are proposals for film lovers, with the D’A Film Fest or the Impacte!; of theater and dance, with the ZIP or the Sismògraf; of music, with MUTEK, Strenes or Soundit; of art and literature, with the OFFF Barcelona or the NUDO poetry festival; and gastronomy, with the Pizzafest or the All Those Food Market, among many others. Catalonia will be filled these days with increasingly closer events that reflect the diversity and cultural richness of the territory. We compile some of those that should not be missed.
This spring’s festival offering starts in Girona, where the Strenes brings together the presentations of new material from the main groups gathered in long musical sessions spread over different stages such as the one on Friday, April 5, where Paula Valls, Pelat i Pelut, Ginestà and Raule, while the next day you can see, among others, Xarim Aresté, Maria Hein, Figa Flawas and Quimi Portet on their 25th anniversary tour. The list for lovers of music in Catalan (and Spanish) is varied and generous, and includes Els Amics de les Arts, Gossos, El Kanka, Russian Red, 31 Fam, Julieta, Guillem Gisbert, La Ludwig Band, Blaumut or The Tyets. Artists who will distribute their music throughout the month of April and the beginning of May in spaces as varied as Plaza del Vi, the stairs of the cathedral, Estació Jove or the La Mirona de Salt room.
Electronic lovers have an unmissable date with the MUTEK festival, which celebrates its 15th edition in Barcelona with the mix of image and sound that characterizes the Canadian-based event. Spread across four spaces in the city, MUTEK has three top-level performances this year, including Autechre, the electronic music duo from Manchester considered one of the most influential in electronic music of the last three decades, and who will star in the opening day at the Apolo room on April 9. The next day it will be the turn of Daito Manabe, the Japanese visual artist who already dazzled the attendees of the last Sónar and who now returns to the city with his new show, AV, where he exploits high-definition realism through the recognition and recombination of elementary building blocks.
Another high-profile name is that of the Chilean-German Ricardo Villalobos, an icon of microhouse and minimalist trends who will hold a session at the Nitsa Club that coincides with the reissue of Alcachofa, his best-known work. The DJ, one of the names most associated with MUTEK, will share his music with the visuals of Venezuelan videographer Acid Thermal on a night where Maher Daniel and Michelle will also play.
The musical offering of the festival is complemented by the more experimental facet that will take place on Saturday afternoon at the Antiga Fàbrica Damm, scenic and visual poetry by Grand River, Yamila, Noémi Büchi, Efe Ce Ele and SPIME.IM. Without forgetting, of course, the installation Impulse that the Quebec native Martin Messier will plant at the Roca Barcelona Gallery, where sound and light intermingle in a non-linear choreography as an analogy of the functioning of the brain.
In other magnitudes, Soundit is moving, the electronic music festival that celebrates its tenth anniversary with several dates in the Plaza Monumental awaiting the appearance of Jeff Mills on July 20 at the Parc del Fòrum.
Beyond Barcelona, ??the Blues i Ritmes festival in Badalona stands out, which from April 12 to 21 will offer performances by Eli Paperboy Reed and Sam Outlaw, Jim Lauderdale
And for those who are in the Vall d’Aran taking advantage of the last copious snowfalls of March, the Polar Sound festival offers a musical proposal that includes Ana Mena, Taburete, Arde Bogotá, Álvaro de Luna, La Oreja de Van Gogh and Veintiuno , among others, to end the ski day with performances typical of the big city.
From yesterday until Saturday, Barcelona hosts the 24th edition of the OFFF festival, the annual event that brings together the biggest names in the world of creativity, digital art and emerging talent. Meeting point, the Disseny Hub in Plaça de las Glòries. At the reception, attendees will be able to chat with Noa, a digital avatar created by LOWKEYMOVES that incorporates conversational AI, allowing for conversational conversations and coherent answers to questions.
And once inside, the highlight of this Friday’s day will be the performance of New Yorker Sam Rolfes, half of Team Rolfes, the duo of which he is a part with his brother Andy. They have worked for Lady Gaga and in their proposals they fuse avatars, VR puppets and humans with motion detectors. He will be succeeded by London-based David Wilson, a queer director known for his radical and playful music videos, whose work has earned a Grammy nomination and has been recognized with important awards at various festivals. Another highlight of Saturday will be Ben Tallon’s (host of The creative condition podcast) conversation with illustrator Stefan Sagmeister.
For lovers of younger and more accessible art, Fira de Barcelona is hosting the first edition of Art3f until Sunday, an initiative with a nomadic vocation that starts in Barcelona. And from April 7 to 14, the eighth edition of NUDO, an unleashed poetry festival, will be held. Recitals, performances, video poetry, workshops and the premiere of the collective exhibition of photography and literature This is a body.
As part of the Altres mirades proposal, the TNC hosts the ZIP, the festival for new stage performers. From April 10 to 14, love is the protagonist of this second edition. Quan jo dic amor is Juan Miranda’s proposal, which explores the relationship of the body with the virtual world, through a painting workshop, an installation and a performance.
Alberto Cortés presents the Diptych of the Romantic Mountains with two pieces with almost opposite approaches. The Andalusian artist makes poetry from post-anarchism in El ardor, and proposes a corny and musical declaration of love from a queer perspective in One night at the Golden Bar. The love and violence that surrounds some relationships center the montage Paraules d’amor, by Núria Güell, who provides the voices that point to a certain notion of love as the main form of alienation in our society.
At DIEstinguished, the La Ribot company presents a dance and video piece that conceives dance as an experience where cameras become playmates. And Claraguilar, in the gardens of the Tallers room, will combine landscapes and sounds to imagine new forms of coexistence in Sounds of an imagined Arca.
In Olot, Sismògraf 2024 focuses on movement and climate challenges with more than thirty artistic proposals, from April 18 to 30, which expands with the Sismodansa. And until April 27 you can still see some of the 235 free-access shows of Barcelona Cultural District, on 36 stages in the city.
April is the month of film festivals par excellence. The Xcèntric, the CCCB’s stable film program and meeting place for the public, filmmakers and scholars eager to enjoy a visionary seventh art, has a series of interesting screenings until May 26. On April 18 it will be the turn of Homecomings, where filmmaker Dirk de Bruyn returns with his family to the Netherlands twenty-five years after having emigrated to Australia when he was a child. The pedagogical experience of the Young Filmmakers Foundation will appear on the big screen, just like the miniature cinema of Michael Rudnick or the animations of Sally Cruikshank.
From April 4 to 14, the best auteur cinema will appear at the D’A Film Fest, which will raise the curtain on its fourteenth edition with Second Prize, by Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez. A work of fiction inspired by the story of the Granada group Los Planetas that won the Biznaga de Oro for best film at the last Malaga festival. This year’s D’A’s extensive programming highlights Long Shadows, Clara Roquet’s new series for Disney, and the latest works by Hong Sangsoo, Tsai Ming Liang, Wang Bing, Radu Jude, Cristi Puiu, Catherine Corsini, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Angela Schanelec or Lisandro Alonso. The 2024 D’A award will go to the Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, who will present The Chimera. The BCN Film Fest, directed by Conxita Casanovas, will take over from April 18 to 26 in an eighth edition with a large presence of Spanish titles and the stellar visit of Meg Ryan and Richard Linklater.
And from April 9 to 28, Impacte!, the film and human rights festival of Catalonia, which will have the right to peace as its motto, will welcome its fourth edition, held simultaneously at the Girona cinemas in Barcelona, the University of Girona, the Reus Reading Center and the Lleida Screenbox. It will also have its online version on Filmin and the Impactefilmfest.cat website.
Eating and drinking will also star in several festivals over the next few days, starting with Cheesy Fest, the market dedicated to cheese and cheesecakes, which returns from April 5 to 7 at França station. In this second edition you can taste all kinds of local and international cheeses and accompany them with wine. There will also be tastings by Vila Viniteca, all paired with live music and DJs. Another one that repeats, the Pizza Fest, which will return to Poble Espanyol from April 19 to 21 and in which more than fifteen restaurants will offer their pizzas so that attendees can decide which is their favorite. Additionally, a professional jury will be in charge of recognizing the best in the contest. Live performances, gastronomic activities, classic Italian desserts and artisan ice creams are the rest of the pieces of this event that seeks to consolidate itself in the Catalan capital.
The same weekend the All Those Food Market will celebrate its tenth anniversary, which this year changes location and moves to Moll de la Fusta. What does not change is its commitment to quality and proximity products, and once again it will have more than 60 gastronomic projects by artisans and entrepreneurs who will present everything from jams to artisanal gins. In addition to organizing several gastronomic workshops, this festival will be attended by different Barcelona restaurants such as Dos Pebrots or Lady Dumpling, which will offer attendees their street food proposals; and in the sweet section there will be no shortage of local ice creams from DelaCrem or cheesecakes from Jon Cake.
In the section of events focused on drinks, the San Miguel Biergaten starts on April 26, in which beer and gastronomy will be combined with courses to learn everything about this drink. And Vívid, the Costa Brava wine tourism event that started at the beginning of the month and will last throughout April, brings together activities ranging from food pairings to breakfasts among vineyards, wine tourism routes or visits to wineries, and completes a month that you will surely love. to the most foodies.
