session 6
LULU MARTORELL
Barcelona, 1958. Screenwriter, programmer, and audiovisual director
CV in septets
From 0 to 7 years she grew among flowers and songs.
From 7 to 14 she vibrated on the family piano.
From 14 to 21 she discovered the power of sound. Everything lead her to cinema. She laughed so as not to cry.
From 21 to 28 she tried to devour it all, cover it in scent, and show it on Spanish national TV (TVE). She made Giravolt, Miramar, Pleitaguensam, Canal10…
She sang with Carles Santos and Agustí Fernández. She became an accomplice of the Sales family.
From 28 to 35 she travelled the world filming what she couldn’t do or include for TVE. Glasnost, Bravos, Eldiaquementiendas, La Mandrágora… and she carried on laughing with Pepe till the end.
From 35 to 42 she mourned the death of Pepe Sales on BTV’s Nits Temàtiques.
At 45, around the time of the Iraq war, she began the second half of her match. She moved to Africa to live with the Africans and stayed. She rested, digested, and wrote La família Jammin’ en Senegalize (published by Bellaterra).
At 49 (7×7) she directed Pobres pobres, que els donguin pel cul (TVE + TV3). She won the In-Edit 2007 and became reconciled to everything. She made a film every year. She only wrote when she felt like it. She stopped rushing and rode a motorbike. Every day she listened to more music, because it sounds better under the palm trees.
At 56 she wrote Sobre Rafael Solanic and, through docuweb www.Art + Casamance.net, she tried to make the black art that surrounds the white world she comes from.
She returned to Barcelona to make Alcelobert, an urban documentary series for BTV. She celebrated 30 anys positius with Keith Haring (In-Edit 2019), put up La Passió segons Pepe Sales at the Konvent, and released Amor etern alt grup de risc, a vinyl edition of her songs.
presentation
Preview of Lulu Martorell’s latest work, which will premiere officially on TV3 next December 1st for World Aids Day.
A film that reconstructs and recognises history, dedicated to the victims of AIDS, to the energy of social, scientific, and artistic struggle against HIV, and the freedom offered by Video8 in the 80s and 90s. A tribute to pre-Olympic Barcelona, the mural that Haring painted for us in 1989, his intimate and courageous relation to the city and the harshness of the times.
30 anys positius is the second part of a trilogy based on “the artistic revolution of Video8”, that began in 2007 with Pobres pobres, que els donguin pel cul (a portrait of Pepe Sales), continues with 30 anys positius (a portrait of Keith Haring), and will end with W, a portrait of Francisco Casavella (to be made in 5 or 6 years’ time).
30 anys positius. Keith Haring/BCN’89
2020_75 min
Written and directed by: Lulu Martorell
Production and postproduction: Roger La Puente (for LaInterferència)
Soundtrack: Judit Farrés and César de Melero
With support from: Keith Haring Foundation, The Wyler Agency, ICUB, MACBA and CCMA
The film opens with Haring painting, on a beautiful sunny day in 1989, a 30-metre wall, while being recorded by a Sony Video8. Using this historic tape in which we watch him creating the very explicit mural “We can stop AIDS together”, the film re-examines these past 30 years of struggle, resistance, solidarity, and research on the epidemic. And at the same time it weaves the story of society at that time, of the taboos, the drugs, Chinatown, Barcelona before the Olympics, acid-house, sexual freedom, stigma…
A social chronicle explained through art and thanks to Keith Haring’s intimate generosity, because, as he says, art is for everyone, and despite his premature death 30 years ago, the power of his message endures, more valid than ever, and his work becomes steadily greater.
30 anys positius is a tribute to activism and involved art. And a great honour for our city.
FLUX CLUB celebrates its 11th season at the Antic Teatre and the 20th anniversary of its creation in 2000.
This is a fortnightly video programme that reflects the vitality of video creation in Barcelona. It hosts all kinds of sessions with screenings, video performances, and debates offering direct contact between audiences and video creators. The sessions focus on a range of subjects, from monographics of well-known directors to specific themes such as video dance and video poetry, or collective sessions dedicated to emerging authors.
The programme is open to everything currently going on in the field of video in Barcelona, complementing the FLUX Video Auteur Festival with its content and extending its sphere of influence beyond the dates of the festival, which takes place in December.
HABITUAL VIDEO TEAM is a non-profit association that has as its main objective the promotion of activities related to the visual arts, specifically, video art: www.habitualvideoteam.org.
A fundamental area of their work is the organisation of festivals, cycles and video shows, such as the FLUX Video Auteur Festival: www.fluxfestival.org, and the INFLUX Audiovisual Performing Arts Festival: www.influxfestival.org.
Another area of Habitual Video Team’s activity is video documentation of cultural events mainly related to experimental music and poetry performances. In 2012 they launched the SUMMA project in order to convert this audiovisual heritage (more than 1000 recordings) into a non-profit online video archive: www.summa-hvt.org.
