Catalonia heads into this year’s Berlinale with its widest selection in years. Panorama’s feature-length debut Iván und Hadum, the much-talked-about Max series about Barcelona’s gentrification crisis, the return of a short film director, and a Latin American minority co-production, all supported by the entire value chain from the Catalan government’s cultural agency ICEC.
The Berlin screening marks a new chapter for a region that has spent the past decade building one of Europe’s most dynamic audiovisual ecosystems. Previous Berlin editions have showcased Catalan cinema’s artistic credentials, including Carla Simon’s 2022 Gold Bear winner Alcaraz and 2023 Best Actor winner Estivalis Uresola’s 20,000 Species of Bees, but this year’s selection marks a deliberate pivot towards diversity of form and international reach.
“One of the drivers is the diversity of projects, which reflects the fact that most production companies now operate in a variety of capacities,” ICEC director Edgar Garcia told Variety. “This has created an extraordinary richness not only in the genre of the works, but also in their stories and formats, from series, features and short films to international co-productions.
His most famous work is Ivan and Hadum, directed by Ian de la Rosa, which will make its world premiere as Panorama, a love story set in southern Spain that crosses railroad tracks. The film, a Spanish-German-Belgian co-production, won the Eurimage Prize at the 2023 Berlinale Co-Production Market. This is a validation of the network infrastructure that Catalonia has built over the years.
Delarosa’s trajectory illustrates ICEC’s shorts pipeline. His previous short story “Farrucas” won a Gaudi Prize and was nominated for a Goya Award, and he caught the attention of a producer who led him to make this feature.
For de la Rosa, winning the Eurimage Prize at the 2023 Berlin Co-Production Market “was the decisive boost he needed to connect the project to the international market, increase its visibility and continue writing screenplays.”
The pipeline is being implemented through ICEC’s Shortcat program, which is now in its 19th year. Each year, six short films are selected for international distribution support, providing filmmakers with the festival’s strategy and market connections.
This year, director Cristian Avilés premiered “Daydream about a Spanish Holiday” in the short story competition and returns to Berlin with “The Stallion and the Crystal Ball.”
García pointed out that the Catalan government treats audiovisual as a “creative and strategic industry”. “As a result of this approach, the audiovisual sector has developed strong alliances with the private stakeholders that operate within it, making it a real game-changer for the industry.”
Alumni of the Shortcat program include Lucia Romero, whose “Cura Sana” won the Berlin 2024 Crystal Bear. The film delves into the lives of young sisters shaped by the lasting effects of ancestral violence and abuse. Filmax is currently developing films selected for this year’s Berlin Co-Production Market.
But Berlin’s most ambitious Catalan project is in many ways Ravalear: Not For Sale. It is a six-episode Max series from Oscar-nominated Robot Dreams producer Arcadia Motion Pictures and the first Catalan series to be selected as a Berlinale Special Series. Created by Pol Rodríguez and co-directed with Isaki Lacuesta, with whom he previously teamed up on Malaga winner Saturn Return, the series is inspired by Rodríguez’s family’s 100-year-old bar in Barcelona’s Raval district, and transports viewers into a city mired in gentrification, an identity crisis, and an existential crisis.
“It’s about memory and progress,” Rodriguez said of the series. “What happens when a neighborhood’s identity is erased for profit?”
“La Vallea,” starring Enrique Ocale, “Sirato” star Serge López and Francesc Orella, is supported by ICEC’s High-End TV Production Fund, which provides up to €1.5 million ($1.8 million) for Catalan series with budgets of more than €4 million ($4.7 million). Established in 2022, the fund has already proven its worth. Another endowment, “Pubertad” by Leticia Dolera, was recently sold to Arte through Beta Film.
The model is working. The logic goes that if French and German series are distributed internationally on Netflix and other platforms, why not in Catalan?
Rounding out Catalonia’s presence in Berlin is a panoramic selection co-produced by Paraguay, Germany, Uruguay, Brazil, Portugal, Spain and France, with “Narciso” by Berlin winner Marcelo Martinez (“The Heirs”). Barcelona-based B-Team joined the project through ICEC’s Minority Co-Production Fund, which provides up to 300,000 euros (approximately $354,000) to position Catalan producers as international partners. Set in Paraguay in 1958, the film follows a charismatic musician who becomes a sensation and symbol of freedom under military dictatorship. Luxbox will handle worldwide sales.
Catalan films are also attracting attention at the Spanish box office. Mediapro Studio’s Catalan drama “El 47,” about a bus driver who hijacks his own bus to serve an underprivileged neighborhood in Barcelona, grossed 3.4 million euros (about 370 million yen) in Spanish theaters, making it the highest-grossing Catalan film in 40 years. “A House on Fire,” directed by Dani de la Olden, added another 3.1 million euros ($3.4 million). It was shot in Catalan and became the first time a Catalan film shot in Catalan has topped the Spanish box office.
For Catalonia, the remaining frontier is scale. The soft money structure, which allows productions between €1.5 million and €4 million, struggles to support larger budget mainstream productions that can compete with international studio rates.
But in Berlin, ICEC-backed projects span features, series, short stories, and international co-productions, making the ecosystem’s broadest claim to date that it’s firing on almost all cylinders.
