“La Rambla, Vila del Llibre” Festival

With Passatge Bacardí as its editorial heart and countless emblematic corners as its setting, the festival unfolds a programme that links literature, cinema, urban memory and critical thought, always with Ciutat Vella as a vibrant backdrop.

The main thread of this edition is its tribute to Ventura Pons, an essential filmmaker and tireless adaptor of Catalan literature. Through various conversations at Restaurant Ocaña, his artistic commitment, his LGTBIQ+ activism, his ability to discover actors and his vision of Barcelona, projected internationally through his films, are revisited. Actors, writers, critics and collaborators will gather to reconstruct his legacy through multiple voices.

The festival also pays tribute to key figures of the city, such as Lluís Permanyer, and sets out a Cicle La Rambla that highlights the relationship between literature and cinema, Pasolini’s contemporary resonance, and the recovery of educational projects such as Vitalibris. Debates on the historical phenomenon of pistolerismo, book presentations, committed photojournalism, biographies and the reclamation of forgotten authors complete a cultural map as diverse as La Rambla itself.

The publishing market will bring together independent imprints that champion proximity and distinctive voices, while various literary routes will allow visitors to rediscover the promenade through the eyes of Andersen, Lorca, Sagarra, Rodoreda, Capmany and so many other writers who have turned it into a mythical setting.

Among squares, libraries, historic hotels and Modernist passages, La Rambla once again confirms that few streets tell as much, and tell it as well, as this one.