What image of Barcelona does cinema construct when the city becomes a setting? For years, the version of the Catalan capital that has made it to the big screen has been, above all, one defined by its most iconic landmarks: the Sagrada Família, Park Güell, the streets of the Eixample, and the Mediterranean Sea — symbols that have helped shape an image of Barcelona as sunny, monumental, and cosmopolitan
Already in the first decade of the 2000s, major international productions such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), directed by Woody Allen, and The Cheetah Girls 2 (2006) helped consolidate this image of the city, which, two decades later, remains largely intact. And this postcard version of Barcelona shows no signs of disappearing from the screen. In fact, one does not have to look far for a recent example: La vida en Barcelona, a new series whose filming wrapped just a few weeks ago, follows a young Dutch designer who arrives in the Catalan capital to start a new life and find herself.
A plot that inevitably recalls Emily in Paris, not only because of its premise, but because the new production is created precisely by Katina Medina Mora, director of some of the episodes of this popular series. This coincidence has raised doubts about the image of Barcelona that the new fiction will project: will the city once again be reduced to an idealized vision, as happened with Paris and Emily's life? Or will there also be space to address its challenges, contradictions, and realities beyond the experience of a small group of characters?
The premise inevitably brings to mind Emily in Paris, not only because of its premise, but also because the series is being created by Katina Medina Mora, who directed several episodes of the popular show. This coincidence has raised questions about the image of Barcelona the new series will project: will the city once again be reduced to an idealized version of itself, as Paris was through Emily's eyes? Or will there also be room to explore its challenges, contradictions, and realities beyond the experience of a small group of characters?
But, although this idealized image is the most widespread of the city on the big screen, it is not the only one. Cinema also has the capacity to move away from recognizable places and direct its gaze towards those that remain outside the usual imaginary of the city, even for its own inhabitants. This is the case of recent films like El 47, which helped bring Torre Baró closer to many viewers who until then barely knew the neighborhood and its history. A look at this other Barcelona that Marc Recha had already explored, years before, in Petit Indi (2009), although delving into an even more border and unknown neighborhood: Vallbona.
Thus, while Woody Allen premiered that same year a Barcelona traversed by two American tourists and built around its great icons, Recha filmed Petit Indi in the small neighborhood of Vallbona, a border territory between Barcelona and Montcada i Reixac, where orchards, the Besòs river, and train tracks draw a landscape halfway between rural and urban. More than a set, these elements almost become another protagonist of the film, thanks to Recha's calm and contemplative gaze, who opts for spaces of silence in which he dwells on the small details of the landscape, letting the environment also help tell the story.
Both the film and the neighborhood in which it is set share, in a way, the same condition: both have remained far from the major media spotlights. Revisiting Petit Indi today —available on Filmin— thus allows us to turn our gaze back to Vallbona through the story of Arnau, a teenager who lives with his sister while his mother is in prison and he looks for a way to help her. A story about the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, marked by precariousness and the environment in which he grows up.
On the border between two worlds
With just over 1,300 inhabitants, Vallbona is still today one of Barcelona's smallest and most unique neighborhoods. Located at the northern end of Nou Barris, next to Montcada i Reixac and the Besòs river, it is nestled between railway lines, roads, and large infrastructures. A border territory, in short, halfway between the city and the countryside, where orchards and natural spaces still survive alongside industrial estates and housing.
But, just like the territory he inhabits, the protagonist, Arnau —played by Marc Soto in his cinematic debut— also lives between two worlds. The teenager is at that uncertain moment between childhood and adulthood and finds in his birds a refuge from a reality he still doesn't know how to face. He spends hours caring for and training them, especially a goldfinch in which he places much of his hopes.
But birds are not just a refuge for Arnau. They also represent an opportunity to get the money he needs to help his mother, imprisoned in Wad-Ras, another of Barcelona's buildings that can still be recognized in the film. Convinced of her innocence, the young man wants to hire a good lawyer to defend her and, to raise the money, he delves into the world of bird singing contests and greyhound races, guided by his uncle Ramón, who introduces him to this environment of bets and small businesses outside the law.
But this small world changes when Arnau finds an injured fox next to the Besòs and decides to save it. The animal becomes a new companion for the teenager and, at the same time, alters the fragile balance of his relationship with the birds. Animals thus occupy a central place in the film: they are a refuge, companionship, and also a reflection of Arnau himself, of his need to protect and to feel protected at a time when he begins to discover the harshness of the adult world.
Beyond birds and greyhounds, another animal has great importance in the film: an injured fox that the protagonist finds next to the Besòs river and decides to save. From then on, the fox functions almost as a reflection of Arnau himself: through the animals, Recha portrays a teenager who still retains the ingenuity of someone who believes they can protect what they want and, in some way, transform and improve their own reality.
But, as the film progresses, this illusion ends up clashing with the harshness of his environment and precariousness. When the last hope of saving his mother suddenly disappears, Arnau definitively loses the innocence he still retained and discovers, for the first time, that he cannot always control what surrounds him. Faced with a reality that slips through his hands, the character only seems to be left with, finally, rage.
Petit Indi does not discover a city that did not exist, but rather directs its gaze towards a Barcelona that has always been here, but rarely occupies the center of the frame
Outside the usual frame
Animals are, therefore, a key part of the film, but the landscape also takes on a leading role. Recha meticulously explores the details of a transforming territory, where orchards and natural spaces coexist with precarious housing, railway lines, factories, and other large infrastructures. This attention to detail allows for the recognition of some of the most characteristic corners of this landscape, such as the old Canòdrom de la Meridiana —now disappeared—, the Tres Xemeneies de Sant Adrià, or the Estrella Damm factory —where Arnau works with his family—.
And it is in these spaces that a difference appears with respect to the film that starred in the previous episode of this cinematic journey in which every Wednesday we immerse ourselves in The New Barcelona Post with Lights, camera... and Barcelona!. In The Perfume, protagonist of the previous episode of the series, Barcelona was deliberately hidden behind another city: its streets, squares, and buildings were transformed to recreate 18th-century Paris, to the point that the production sought for the viewer to forget they were seeing the Catalan capital.
In Petit Indi, almost the opposite happens. The production does not try to convert Barcelona into another city, but rather to show a part of it that rarely reaches the big screen. Recha simply directs the camera towards a territory very different from what large productions usually show. The film does not feature the Sagrada Família or Park Güell, although it does feature the Eixample, where Arnau travels in search of the prestigious lawyer who could help his mother. But it does feature the Besòs river, the orchards, the train tracks, the factories, and the roads that draw the limits of a territory suspended between two worlds: the countryside and the city.
Perhaps that is why Petit Indi is especially interesting within this journey through cinematic Barcelona. Because the film does not discover a city that did not exist, but rather directs the gaze towards a Barcelona that has always been here, but which rarely occupies the center of the frame. A city that, far from being masked, simply remained out of the media spotlight, dominated by great icons and a cosmopolitan and Mediterranean image of the city. Thanks to Recha's camera, therefore, a new face of the city, unknown even to its residents, is revealed on screen.