About Oriol Rodríguez

Journalist

The scathing pen of Aleix Saló

They say that even José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, towards the end of his term as Spanish prime minister, went onto YouTube to see Españistán. Este país se va a la mierda (or “Spanistan, This Country is Going to the Dogs”), the video animation (there is also a paper version with the same title published by Glenat) in which the cartoon illustrator Aleix Saló (born in 1983) used a corrosive and cutting style to explain the source of the financial crisis that has been affecting us for too long now. It became an internet hit that positioned him as one of the great up-and-coming players in the world of comic-strips and illustration in Catalonia. However, this young artist only sees this success as the starting point for many projects he wants to do in the future: “I love my job; sometimes I think I love it too much. In recent years, I’ve had so many financial problems that I often didn’t even have enough for food, but I can’t do anything other than draw.”

He says that his generation is one of choppers and changers, people with very diverse interests, and maybe that’s why he didn’t grow up thinking he wanted to be an illustrator: “But I’m from a town, Ripollet, which, although its arts facilities are non-existent, does have a group of very active people who, among many other things, publish a weekly magazine.” It was in that local publication that, at the tender age of 15, he started publishing his first cartoons, which already reflected his penchant for analysing current affairs in a somewhat satirical tone. In those early years, he combined those comic strips with an architecture degree. “It took me six years to do three years of the course!”, Saló, who is now a long-standing Barcelona resident, admits. “I loved the course, but you have to put all your time into it, although it’s no harder than other courses. Back then, I was living in Sabadell, working in Ripollet and studying in Sant Cugat. I couldn’t keep up with it all.”

However, as he says, he had a stroke of luck and won the Carnet Jove comic strip competition, which allowed him to publish his first book and devote himself exclusively to drawing. A little later, Españistán came out, which he describes as the product of a certain mood, “of the times I spent reading websites like meneame.net or burbuja.info, which give you a grasp of what people are thinking. That term, ‘Españistán’, has been used on the more critical internet forums for some time to refer to the need we’ve felt to prove that we are a rich, first-world country, which we are not.”

With the same scathing pen, Saló has once again aimed and fired, with irony and causticity, at those he considers responsible for the financial crisis, in his new work Simiocràcia. Crònica de la gran ressaca econòmica (Ape-ocracy. Chronicle of the Big Economic Hangover), published by Debolsillo. Is he the preferred illustrator of the Indignant movement? “Some have said that, but that label is totally undeserved. All I do is research and make comic strips about the economic situation. And while I am sympathetic to the movement, I never even set foot in the 15-M camp on Plaça de Catalunya. I was at home, working. I don’t want to fight the system. I just want things to get better.”

Mar Coll, keeping promises

By Oriol Rodríguez.

Her letter of introduction to the world of the silver screen, Tres dies amb la família (Three Days with the Family), came out in 2010 and positioned her as one of the most promising new directors in Catalan cinema. It was a magnificent opera prima with which film-maker Mar Coll (born in Barcelona in 1981) became accustomed to outstanding reviews and awards: the Gaudí Award for best director, the Goya Award for best new director and the Silver Biznaga for best director at the Malaga Film Festival… Her love of cinema began at an early age although, rather than directing, what she really wanted then was to be in front of the camera as an actress. “It wasn’t until a few years later that I seriously thought about working in film in one way or another” she says. “I saw it as a job with no routine, where every day would be different and I would get to meet new people all the time. A lifestyle that would satisfy me much more than working nine to five in an office.”

She emerged from that boundless cinematographic talent factory, ESCAC (the School of Cinema and Audiovisual Studies of Catalonia), and as she finished the final year of her degree, she decided to write a script. By pure coincidence, at the same time ESCAC was setting up an Opera Prima project so that novice directors could shoot their first feature film. Mar Coll left for Mexico and worked on the plot for one year. She was selected. “I was so lucky. I was in just the right place at the right time. If I hadn’t been at the school and the Opera Prima project hadn’t come about, it would have been so much harder for me to make the film. Shooting a film can be a bit of an odyssey, but in my case all I had to do was present the script.”

The film is about lack of communication within the family and is based on a personal experience: “When I was starting to look for a subject, my grandfather died. I realised this could be a good beginning, because it gave structure to the story. The plot wasn’t too elaborate and it was easy to develop because I just had to focus on the events experienced by the family over the three days of the wake. It’s nothing new; there are thousands of films with a plot based on a wedding or a funeral.” But, as she points out, although there are certain echoes of her own life, the characters and situations in the film are not real. “I might have stolen a detail here and there, but the purpose was not to portray my family, although they were curious, and even nervous, to see what it was about.”

Mar Coll is currently working on her second feature film, Geni, starring actress Nora Navas, winner of a Goya for her role in Pa negre (Black Bread) alongside other familiar faces from Catalan stage and screen, such as Clara Segura and Àgata Roca. The film tells the story of a married woman who faces changes in her life that alter her relationships with her family and friends.

Stimulating bankrobbers

By Oriol Rodríguez.

Marçal Lladó (Girona, 1978) and Xavier Riembau (La Bisbal d’Empordà, 1975) will be remembered for having created a record company, Bankrobber, which is one of the most exciting labels on today’s Catalan music scene. The label has just celebrated its tenth anniversary, and has been home to artists such as Mazoni, Sanjosex, El Petit de Cal Eril, Guillamino, Els Surfing Sirles, Le Petit Ramon and others.

They met when, on Saturday evenings, they both went to the band practice of Red Orange, a group that included a certain Jaume Pla (who a little later would head up Holland Park, those creators of exquisite melodies, and years later would be known by the artistic name of Mazoni) and Miquel Abras, who also forged a successful music career. “It was in that band rehearsal space in La Bisbal d’Empordà that the story of Bankrobber began,” says Xavier Riembau.

He decided to find someone he trusted and who saw promise in the group, with whom to set up the record company. Obviously, that was Marçal. “He said yes, but on the condition that first we had to find someone reliable to do the accounts,” he laughs. “We chose Jordi Pi, a friend from Barcelona who had studied commerce and was also a big fan of Holland Park.” The founding fathers of Bankrobber also included Ramon Ponsatí, responsible for graphics and design. “We all came from different fields, but we all share a passion for music,” explains Marçal. “Xavier worked in band management, I’m a journalist and Jordi was good at business management. Meanwhile, Ramon took charge of the image and identity.”

At the outset, their goals were very short-term, but they knew they had to go further than Holland Park’s first record and seek out more bands. They quickly brought El Chico con la Espina en el Costado into the family, and then were bowled over by Guillamino, soon to be followed by Sanjosex, Espaldamaceta, Mazoni, Le Petit Ramon and many more.

A few months ago, they settled into a two-storey premises in Gràcia, with offices on the top floor and a spacious room on the lower floor that will be used for launches and acoustic performances. Today, every media organisation draws attention to the records brought out by this label, but it was not always that way. “At the beginning, it felt like what we said was falling on deaf ears,” recalls Xavier. “Only one journalist came to the label’s launch concert.”

The turning point came when they got Guillamino to present his first record at the Sónar festival. The legendary British radio host John Peel was there; they didn’t miss the chance to give him a copy of the album and Peel played it on his show when he got back to England.

At this time of global recession, which is even more acute in the recording industry, they know the secret to their success. “The goal has always been to make good records with music that we feel is worthwhile and that, for whatever reason, doesn’t make it into the media or the right channels. Our formula is no better or worse than any other, but it is well defined: a formula in which we grow alongside the artist.”