Wednesday 17 December 2014
Reel Solutions
Screening of the documentary A Poem in Exile (Un poema a l'exili)
Dir. Alba Gómez Escudero. USA/ Spain, 2012, 77 mins. In Catalan with English subtitles.
Presented by Ramon Lamarca (Reel Solutions)
Followed by Q&A with Prof. Paul Preston
Time: 18.30 h.
Place: Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria St, London SW1E 6QW
In collaboration with the Catalan Observatory
Winner of the Audience Award for best documentary at the Cambridge Film Festival this year, A Poem in Exile narrates the unpublished story of ‘The Manger’, a musical piece composed by cellist Pablo Casals, based on a poem of the same name written by Joan Alavedra.
Pablo Casals and Joan Alavedra were among the many Catalan politicians, artists and intellectuals forced into exile in France after the Spanish Civil War. During this time, a deep friendship formed between them and a creative relationship was established. Joan Alavedra wrote the poem, ‘The Manger’, which won an important poetry contest in Perpignan, France in 1943, which inspired Casals to turn the poem into an oratorio.
A Poem in Exile documents the unpublished correspondence between Casals and Alavedra, together with accounts given by leading experts on the subject and tells how Alavedra's poem was transformed into a musical composition that became a message for world peace.
After the screening, Prof. Preston responded to questions about the nature of the Spanish Second Republic and Francoism, as well as the figure of Pablo Casals more specifically. He highlighted that many people with the same bourgeois Catalanist ideology as Casals and Alavedra were killed or imprisoned either by the Francoists and the Anarchists during the war, but the pair avoided this fate, leaving the country as exiles. Prof. Preston went on to praise the remarkable courage and commitment that Casals demonstrated in his belief for peace and democracy, citing the famous case where he refused to perform for Hitler, when the Gestapo asked him to do so.
Left: to right: Prof. Paul Preston, Alba Gómez Escudero (Director of the documentary), Ramon Lamarca and Helena Doz (Producer of the documentary)