Director's notes

Love is what led me to Barcelona in 1989.
I knew very little about the city and the region as a whole. Most likely I knew the typical list of stereotypical images, like the sun, the beach, bulls, paella, sangria and partying, but in no way did I understand the local culture at a deeper level. I arrived prior to the Olympic Games of 1992, and before Football Club Barcelona had won their first Champion’s League Cup Final.
 Many tourists still hadn’t even discovered Gaudí.
Nowadays everyone knows Barça, and all visitors to Barcelona have taken a photo of the Sagrada Familia. I’m afraid, however, that not many notice when the people of this region
– and part of south-western France – frown when foreigners
refer to them as Spanish or French.
I didn’t know that fact back in 1989, either. I knew there was another language spoken here, but not that its literature was older than its Spanish or French counterparts. I could never have suspected that this 1000-year old language and this culture had been persecuted and prohibited for three centuries.

And what about the current situation?
How many people know that a good handful of the European Union’s official languages are actually spoken by fewer people than those who speak Catalan? Does anyone realise that this language is not officially recognised by the EU?
I’ve lived in Catalunya for the last twenty years, a fair few of which have seen me involved in the world of poetry. I’ve worked with composers who create music to be set to poems written by Catalan poets, and have sung their work in recitals.
I’ve grasped what this culture is all about for enough time to be able to say that it is in good shape. Despite passing through hard times, the culture has managed to go on being productive and healthy for centuries, since the very first poets –the troubadours –started writing verse in a language other than Latin. This use of a distinct language took place long before the Catalan troubadours’ Spanish and French neighbours realised that they could do the same thing with their own dialects.
I had been working actively with CAEAC for quite some time before I proposed the idea of this film to the participating members of the association. Their enthusiasm and support has undoubtedly helped bring the dream alive. Straightaway we agreed that it was the perfect moment to invite people from both north and south of the Pyrenees to express what they felt about their cultural identity. We also agreed on the need to keep politics aside, especially since the vast majority of politicians and groups covering the whole spectrum of political colours tend to coincide in their defence of cultural topics
relating to their country.
This is a film which delves into feelings, music, poetry, traditions and it deals with normal folk. It isn’t about ideology, and much less about race: there is no such thing as a Catalan ethnic group. In fact, anyone who wishes to can be Catalan, no matter what religion or place of origin they come from or are part of.
Being Catalan is to love, use and protect this ancient language. Being Catalan is to share this incredible land and to enjoy this wonderful culture, which is both rich but at the same time vulnerable. It is a culture that Europe cannot afford to lose.

This is the film’s great strength.
 It’s about how David attempts to survive between two Goliath giants. Except that in this 21st century adaptation, there is no fighting. There are no stones and no desire
 to use them to hurt any enemy.
It is basically through language that Catalan people are trying to rebuild their home. It is also this language that the Catalan people are neither willing nor prepared to give up using.
So why stir up a conflict which neither provokes violence nor is attractive news for international media? Well, therein lies the reason. Because we feel the time for the spoken word has arrived. It’s time to show the whole world how Catalan people have managed to survive a centuries-old occupation without resorting to violence. And time to show how Catalans wish to keep going down that path because they are convinced it is the only path to follow.
This is the kind of model that should be followed, rather than the one followed by the headline-generating mass media.
The conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country affect around five million inhabitants, while the conflict affecting Catalan culture extends over an area whose population is three times greater. The first two conflicts mentioned receive regular international media attention,
while the third practically never does.

We are not daft.
We are well aware of the fact that what sells newspapers and raises television viewing audiences is violence. However, as we are deeply involved in the world of culture, we cannot give up our belief that it is a macabre and perverse model, which should neither be approved nor wished for. We much prefer that words regain their power and strength. It is a utopia we wish to believe in again.
There are no actors in this film. None of the people interviewed has followed a script. And what have they told us? Well, basically, they opened their hearts to us. A strong heart, toughened by circumstance – a heart which beats incessantly, awaiting the day for justice to prevail over force.
The final result is a film we’ve grown to love. We are delighted with the aesthetic aspect of the film, and hugely satisfied with its narrative content, which is both deep and emotive. We have managed to do exactly what we thought we should do from the outset: let peace-loving people speak, to give voice to those people who have never been defeated for the simple fact that they have used words as their means of defence.
Everyone should take note of this fact. It’s about time that the world understood that only the full re-establishment of lost cultural rights will restore justice to a people who have always defended themselves without the need to shed blood. It is a clear example of the fact that men and women are capable of moving forward without making the same mistakes time and time again.

Meanwhile, in this corner of the Mediterranean,
people continue writing poetry which will be set to music and sung hereafter, in much the same way as the first troubadours did long ago. And you never know -perhaps for the first time ever, the two giants will make the effort to stop and listen to what they are saying. Perhaps they will begin to defend them and even to love them, or at the very least to respect them. Or, who knows, maybe the European institutions themselves will stop turning a blind eye for once while the two giant states are doing their utmost to ensure that those very traits which enrich cultures through their differences disappear forever.
We can dream, anyway...