Synopsis

Three key elements

1. Perpignan, a city to the north of the Pyrenees
 and on the fringes of the Mediterranean coast,
 plays host to an annual poetry contest.
 The poems are written in Catalan,
 the language spoken in the region centuries
 before the French language
 was imposed as the official language there.

2. Eduard -a school teacher and poet-
 along with Salvador -a scientist and musician-
 enter the contest with a joint work,
 which ended up winning the prize for poetry set to music.

3. Mariel, who sang the piece composed by Eduard and Salvador,
 is invited by the organisers of the contest
 to give a live performance of this winning piece
 on the day of the prize-giving ceremony.

Underlying motivation

Stemming from this, Mariel, who lives on the south side
 of the Pyrenees (where Catalan has also been spoken for centuries in spite of the imposition of Spanish as the official language in the region), has an idea: to make a film about the journey to Perpignan, a journey which will take her across the Pyrenees from south to north and which will be the symbol of the linguistic and cultural unity within a land separated by force
by the French and Spanish states.

 The journey

The car journey lasts an hour and 20 minutes,
 the same length of time as the film itself.
It was filmed in real time during the trip to the prize-giving ceremony, and sees Mariel speaking about her arrival in Catalunya 20 years back, and how she learned to love the language and culture that she adopted over the years.

People

All the while, people involved in the Jocs Florals del Roselló – the name given to this poetry event – reflect upon and explain how they feel about their cultural identity. An emotional journey, brought all the more to life with colourful images of Catalan traditions – sardanes, gegants, trabucaires, castells – along with interviews filmed outdoors during the festivals of Sant Jordi in the town of Sant Cugat – southern side of the Pyrenees – and the Festa Catalana held in the village of Banyuls,
on the northern side of the Pyrenees.

The special touch

Two key elements of this film are music and poetry, which provide the thread that guides the story from start to end. Jordi Barre and Josep Meseguer write the music which is put to classical and contemporary texts written by Catalan poets.Jordi Barre’s contribution to the film both in interviews and singing live, a capella, cannot be underestimated, but in fact should be considered to be a significant and historic document. Born in 1920, Jordi Barre was awarded with the Creu de Sant Jordi in Catalunya in 1992 and the Ordre Nacional du Mèrite awarded by France, and he wrote more than twenty records in Catalan. He is undoubtedly a cultural reference
 on the north side of the Pyrenees.