Barcelona's annual summer season of outdoor movie projections on Montjuïc mountain reduces the Catalan language to a mere token presence. There is one single film in Catalan, Alcarràs, out of the sixteen that are being shown, but not only that, none of the sixteen films are being shown with subtitles in Catalan, but rather in Spanish (15 movies) or English (for the Spanish language film Relatos salvajes). This is the complaint published by the language NGO Plataforma per la Llengua and it notes that the omission of Catalan's own language is already the norm for this summer entertainment highlight: "The organization considers that it is already normal practice, unfortunately, for the Sala Montjuïc season to exclude the territory's own language from its screenings, but it regrets that in this year's edition the presence of Catalan has not only been reduced to a single film, but that the language chosen for movie subtitling is not Catalan either." Precisely, Barcelona mayor Ada Colau announced last week that the person chosen to open this year's Mercè festival in the city will be Alcarràs director Carla Simón, who has consistently defended the success of making films in Catalan and won the Golden Bear for her latest film at the Berlin festival in February this year.
The Plataforma group also regrets another incongruity: "In this regard, all films have been programmed in the original audio version with subtitles in Spanish and the only film to be projected with original Spanish audio, Relatos salvajes, has been given subtitles in English, and not in Catalan". Thus, aside from Carla Simón's film, priority has been given to subtitles in English, a foreign language in Catalonia, over Catalan, when the original version of the film was in Spanish: Relatos Salvajes by Argentinian director Damián David Szifron. Over this aspect, the language NGO recalls that "the desire to reach international tourists with films mostly in the original English version does not justify renouncing the territory's own language, even in the subtitles".
Barcelona city council fails to subsidize cinema in Catalan
Plataforma per la Llengua also notes that the financing of the annual cinema a la fresca at the city's Montjuïc castle, organized by Sala Montjuïc, is subsidised by the Barcelona city council under mayor Colau. On the summer film season's website, there is public support from the council, as well as from private brands, and public and private media. The city council have, for the moment, not commented on the issue. This is not the first controversy which Ada Colau's municipal government has been involved in due to a lack of sensitivity towards the Catalan language.
The language NGO also denounces another city-subsidized movie season that ignores Catalan: "The open-air cinema cycle Grades obertes, ("Open stands") at the former Sant Andreu dogtrack, the Canòdrom, organized by the Canòdrom centre and the Sant Andreu district of the city council, has also excluded Catalan from most of the programming in this year's edition. Of the four films programmed, Alcarràs is once again the only one to be shown in Catalan, and of the other three, there are two (District 9 and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) for which a dubbed and subtitled version in Catalan is available, but which have been programmed leaving out Catalonia's own language".
Now, the organization is asking the city councillor responsible for culture to require the film seasons it finances to guarantee at least 50% of screenings in Catalan, including those both those with Catalan audio and those subtitled, and to exhibit a Catalan version whenever it exists. Plataforma per la Léngua also calls on the city council to create the position of councillor for language policy to ensure that measures of linguistic protection are carried out in all areas. And it recalls that other municipalities have already taken note of such claims. In the case of the outdoor screenings in Castelldefels, pressure from the organization has resulted in the organizers already scheduling half of its films in Catalan.
Other examples of omission of Catalan
Beyond cinema, cases involving Colau's council with zero representation of the Catalan language have also arisen in other areas. When the Barça team played the final of the Women's Champions League in May, the city council installed a giant screen in Plaça Catalunya, with commentary exclusively in Spanish. Thousands of people followed the match in the centre of the Catalan capital and given the fact that the broadcast audio was in Spanish, social media was flooded with comments criticizing the council of Ada Colau for the decision not to flick the switch over to commentary in Catalan, taking into account that TV3 broadcast the match in that language. As well, in 2020, the municipal government ignored the Catalan language and installed traffic lights with the image "Pulse el Botón" (press the button) and "Espera Verde" (wait for green) in Spanish, which is even breaches current regulations.