Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun and councilor Sònia Hernández presented the Acción Portabella program at the Filmoteca de Catalunya, featuring acts, exhibitions, and screenings to commemorate filmmaker Pere Portabella's centenary. The event kicks off the Año Portabella, starting on his 99th birthday on February 11. The initiative involves 62 entities, including 20 international ones.
On February 11, Pere Portabella, born in Figueres in 1927, will turn 99, launching the Año Portabella that will culminate in his centenary. To mark the occasion, the Ministry of Culture and the Generalitat de Catalunya, represented by Minister Ernest Urtasun and councilor Sònia Hernández, presented the Acción Portabella program this morning at the Filmoteca de Catalunya. Directed by producer Jordi Balló, the title nods to the filmmaker's short film Acció Santos.
The provisional program features activities from 62 entities, 20 of them international, including art centers, festivals, film archives, and universities. Notable participants are the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Fundación Miró, Fundación Tàpies, Madrid's Círculo de Bellas Artes, and New York's MoMA, which will reissue its 2007 retrospective.
The Spanish and Catalan film archives will screen Portabella's films and those he influenced as a producer, such as Luis Buñuel's Viridiana, Marco Ferreri's El Cochecito, and Carlos Saura's Los golfos. Filmoteca Española director Valeria Camporesi emphasized Portabella's significance in Spanish cinema history through these works. The Filmoteca de Catalunya, which holds his legacy, will organize retrospectives extending to institutions in the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF).
Further events include seminars, lectures, and exhibitions at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), and CCCB. International collaborators encompass the Cinemateca Portuguesa, Amsterdam's Eye Filmmuseum, the Toronto International Film Festival, South Korea's Jeonju International Film Festival, and the Europalia biennial. More entities are expected to join via the project's website in coming months.
