Sealed off by the prostitutes of all sizes and colors, pimps with all types of indifference written on their faces and pickpockets at various levels of misery, Filmoteca, a pale concrete architectural baby of Josep Lluís Mateo, reminds of a space ship that landed in the jungle. An out of space miracle or a feast in the times of the financial plague – feel free to choose the metaphor – Filmoteca is a great expression of the Catalan strive to maintain the local film culture rich and diverse, despite of the harsh economical reality.
Besides two comfortable cinema halls, it houses a film library, a cafe, exhibition spaces and a bookshop with more than decent collection of the field literature in various languages. The programming is outstanding and covers both the masterpieces by the gurus of the independent film making from Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Raoul Ruiz to Kôji Wakamatsu and Aleksandr Sokurov, just to name a few, as well as films made by contemporary Spanish and Catalan directors. With the criminally low ticket price of 4 euros (2 for the holders of the Barcelona library card) there are no excuses not to visit the Filmoteca if you have a couple of extra hours in Barcelona.
