Pere Portabella, Doctor Honoris Causa from the UdG

The filmmaker, thinker and politician Pere Portabella has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Girona (UdG). The investiture ceremony will take place on February 10 in the hall of degrees and coinciding with this milestone, the municipalities of Girona and Figueres have organized various cultural activities to commemorate Pere Portabella.

El Bòlit. Center d'Art Contemporani de Girona has organized two exhibitions in homage to the filmmaker with the titles Acció Santos (on the complicity of Portabella with the musician Carles Santos) and Gosar Poder (with an installation by Isaki Lacuesta from the film Film by Portabella Poetes Catalan (1971). At the same time, the Museu de l'Empordà in Figueres will reopen its doors on 5 February with the exhibition Pere Portabella. Art and life, shows that the filmmaker's relationship with other artists such as Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Saura, Manolo Millares and Miquel Barceló.

With this distinction, the UdG wants to recognize the long career of Portabella, both in the cinematographic and cultural field and in the social and political sphere where it has been signified by its commitment to the freedoms and artistic practices linked to the avant-garde. Pere Portabella, through his production company Films 59, promoted some of the emblematic titles of Spanish cinema such as Los Golfos (Carlos Saura, 1959), El Cochecito (Marco Ferreri, 1960) or Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961), the the only Spanish film to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. As a director, after a short stint with Joan Miró, he made his feature film debut in 1968 with Nocturno 29 and in his cinema he combines the heritage of avant-garde culture with the languages of rupture. Other significant titles of his career are Vampire-Cuadecuc (1970), General Report (1976), Warsaw Bridge (1989), The Silence Before Bach (2007) or Moving (2009).