Pere Portabella

D'ombres (2021)

We Were Not Born Refugees (2020)

Eight people from very different backgrounds cross paths in Barcelona, Spain. Lawyers, musicians, translators, security guards, call center agents. They are all immigrants. Some have just arrived, others arrived years ago, leaving behind a war, a dictators ...

In the same boat (2016)

A documentary about the technological progress responsibility in employment destruction, analyzed by philosopher Zygmunt Bauman and others. ...

General Report II: The New Abduction of Europe (2015)

Portabella is putting forward the second part of one of his historic works, the "General report on certain matters of interest for a public screening", which peeked out in 1976 at the start of the political transition process after Franco's death. This sec ...

Uno de aquellos (2009)

2009 Pere Portabella's short ...

Mudanza (2008)

"Mudanza" (Removal) came to be made after the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist was asked for involvement in a project in the Huerta de San Vicente, the home and museum of the García-Lorca family in Granada. The film records the removal of furniture and objects ...

The Silence Before Bach (2007)

A beautiful, sometimes faintly bonkers celebration and contemplation of the role Bach's music plays in the world today. Blending historical reconstruction with very loosely linked 'dramatic' scenes and documentary sequences, the film constitutes a playful, ...

No al no: Visca el piano! (2006)

Carles Santos plays several of his pieces on the piano. This film was made for the exhibit on Carles Santos Visca el piano! held at the Miro Foundation in the summer of 2006. ...

With Good Reason (2004)

A multi-part feature on the governing body of Spain, the Popular Party under Jose María Aznar. Themes include the bombing of Iraq, immigration, U.S. fire in Baghdad, and the manipulation of the media. ...

Lectura Brossa (2003)

a one-woman stage reading of a Joan Brossa play ...

The Tempest (2003)

Naked bodies are buffeted by water accompanied by the music Il Temporale from the opera La Cenerentola and the overture to Il Barbiere di Siviglia both by Gioacchino Rossini. ...

Train of Shadows (1997)

Experimental silent homage to the origins of cinema, recreating the apparent disappearance of a French photographer in the 1920s. ...

Chronicles of the Hidden Truth (1997)

An adaptation of the short story collection by Pere Calders. ...

Art a Catalunya (1992)

An itinerary through the great creations of Catalan art: Romanesque, Gothic, Modernist and Contemporary; with interviews to Catalan creators such as architect Ricardo Bofill, poet Pere Gimferrer, sculptor Susana Solano, and painter Antoni Tàpies. ...

Warsaw Bridge (1990)

A female professor, a writer, and an orchestra conductor--three characters, two couples--attend a grand literary cocktail party. The writer has just won the prize for his book "Warsaw Bridge." The winner answers the journalist's questions one after another ...

General Report (1977)

How does a country go from a dictatorship to a democracy? A detailed report on the political representation in the heart of the Spanish Transition, only a few months after General Franco's death, when the sincere democratic vocation of Spanish people must ...

The Dinner (1974)

Five ex-political prisoners meet secretly in a country house one afternoon in 1974 on the same day that Salvador Puig Antich is executed, to talk about their experiences in prison. ...

Miró tapís (1973)

Commissioned by the Maeght Gallery with the exhibition of Joan Miró, organized by the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs at the Grand Palais, which opened on May 17, 1974 in Paris. This film was shot in six days in Montroig del Camp (at the Miró) and Ta ...

Acció Santos (1973)

The film is divided into two antithetical segments ‒ The first is made up of a couple of fixed shots of the pianist, Carles Santos, playing Chopin's Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op.45. The second segment shows him listening to this own recording from a loud ...

Miro Forja (1973)

The film was conmissioned by the Galeria Maeght to commemorate the Joan Miró exhibit organized by the French Minsitry of Cultural Affairs in the Grand Palais in Paris that opened on May 17, 1974. The film, that took five days to shoot, shows the smelting ...

Far from the Trees (1972)

An unprejudiced portrait of Spanish folklore and a crude analysis in black and white of its intimate relationship with atavism and superstition, with violence and pain, with blood and death; a story of terror, a journey to the most sinister and ancestral S ...

Vampir Cuadecuc (1972)

An atmospheric essay, which is an alternative version of Count Dracula, a film directed by Jess Franco in 1970; a ghostly narration between fiction and reality. ...

Umbracle (1972)

This film turns on two basic axes: the inquiry into ways of cinematographic representation and a critical image of official Spain at the time of the Franco dictatorship. "Montage of attractions" and Brechtianism in strong doses. Umbracle is made up of frag ...

París, 20 de juny de 1971. Miting á Montreuil (1971)

Play Back (1970)

Short film by Spanish/Catalan film maker Pere Portabella. ...

Catalan Poets (1970)

At underground film of the 1st Popular Festival of Catalan Poetry filmed in the Proce Theater in Barcelona on May 25, 1970, in solidarity with political prisoners. The participating poets were: Agustí Bartra, Joan Oliver (Pere IV), Salvador Espriu, Joan B ...

El desastre de Annual (1970)

Nocturne 29 (1969)

Portabella's first feature, co-scripted by poet Joan Brossa, became one of the most influential works of the Barcelona avant-garde, although like all his early films, it circulated only in an underground fashion. Eschewing dialogue, the director constructs ...

The National Prizes (1969)

With musical accompaniment from the zarzuela 'The drum Grenadiers' by Ruperto Chapí, a pair of custodians are in the basement of the National Library of Madrid showing some canvas awarded with the National Prize for Painting between 1941 and 1969. ...

Miró, l’altre (1969)

As publicity for the exhibit Miró L'altre, organized by the Colegio de Arquitectos de Catalunya in 1969, the Board commissioned Pere Portabella to film Miró painting the "poster" for the exhibit on the ground floor windows of the building. Portabella was ...

Aidez l'Espagne (1969)

The Colegio de Arquitectos de Catalunya commissioned Pere Portabella to make this film for the Joan Miró retrospective exhibit in 1969. There were heated discussions on whether it would be prudent to screen the film during the exhibit. Portabella took the ...

BiBici Story (1969)

While waiting to get started on the production of his feature Liberxina 90 (1970), Carlos Duran shot this short (with very expressive support by several Escuela de Barcelona professors): a grimly colourful satire on modern society as such, and on its fasci ...

Don't Count On Your Fingers (1967)

Pere Portabella's first work as a director starts with the following phrase: "defeated…but not conquered". This may or should be taken as an allusion to the technical K.O. taken by Portabella from Franco's regime during the sixties as regards his work as ...

The Moment of Truth (1965)

Miguel, a poor young man living in Franco's Spain becomes a bull fighter to escape starvation. ...

Viridiana (1962)

Viridiana is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridiana resembles his dead wife. Viridiana has secretly despised ...

The Wheelchair (1960)

Don Anselmo, a retired old man, decides to buy a motorized disabled stroller since all his pensioner friends own one. ...

The Delinquents (1960)

A group of friends who are struggling to survive in the slums of Madrid commit petty crime in order to finance the debut as a bullfighter of one of them. ...

Constel·lació Portabella (2024)

Constel·lació Portabella traces the exciting life of the great Catalan film director and artist Pere Portabella , which traverses the cultural and political history of the country and the last seventy years, letting us be carried away by the passion, the ...

Els tapissos de Miró (2023)

Drácula Barcelona (2017)

In 1969, Jesús Franco and Christopher Lee shot Count Dracula in Barcelona. At the same time, Pere Portabella became aware of this filming, vampirizing it in Cuadecuc, Vampir. Genre and Art-house films had never been so close. Drácula Barcelona tells the ...

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni: filmbiografía de Antonio Maenza (2012)

Materialista, idealista, cinematógrafo, magnetófono, buen chico y sádico (2012)

Filmmakers in Action (2006)

What is the state of cinema and what being a filmmaker means? What are the measures taken to protect authors' copyright? What is their legal status in different countries? (Sequel to "Filmmakers vs. Tycoons. ...

Speaking of Buñuel (2000)

Surrealist master Luis Buñuel is a towering figure in the world of cinema history, directing such groundbreaking works as Un Chien Andalou, Exterminating Angels, and That Obscure Object of Desire, yet his personal life was clouded in myth and paradox. Tho ...

Olímpicament mort (1986)

A Pepe Carvalho adventure. ...

General Report (1977)

How does a country go from a dictatorship to a democracy? A detailed report on the political representation in the heart of the Spanish Transition, only a few months after General Franco's death, when the sincere democratic vocation of Spanish people must ...

Spain Again (1969)

David (Mark Stevens) is a physician who returns to Spain 30 years after his involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Now a member of a medical convention, he looks up old friends and finds his former lover, now a married woman with a flamenco-dancing daughter ...

Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969)

Without a family, penniless and separated from her sister, a beautiful chaste woman will have to cope with an endless parade of villains, perverts and degenerates who will claim not only her treasured virtue but also her life. ...

BiBici Story (1969)

While waiting to get started on the production of his feature Liberxina 90 (1970), Carlos Duran shot this short (with very expressive support by several Escuela de Barcelona professors): a grimly colourful satire on modern society as such, and on its fasci ...