Fez is one of the North African cities to have had most madrassas, of great architectural beauty. Madrassas, former Koran schools and now open for visits as public monuments, formerly provided one of the functions that raised Fez to the height of its splendour: the study of Islamic tradition and the body of laws and regulations governing social life. They were also the home of the students. Madrassas: Bu Inaniyya (1350), al-Attarin (1323), Seffarin (1280), al-Sahri (1321).

1 Mostra de Vídeo Independent de Barcelona 1993.

In 1985 the Government of Catalonia initiated the so called Cultural Agreement, which established culture as means for an understanding between left-wing and right-wing parties. Culture was destined to manage the new democracy’s rethorics. If some aspired to get the story of the country; some other, the story of the capital. The right-wing dreamed the myth of civil society; the left-wing with that of the citizen. And both saw the bourgeoisie as the symbol of their aspirations, and incidentally, how to overcome their antagonism. The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) was officially born in 1987 as a reflection of that dynamic. The common good was kidnapped since private interests were confused with public debate. The series of interviews this documentary presents wants to capture that process and provide keys of interpretation about the current cultural policies. With contributions from: Oriol Bohigas, Manuel Borja-Villel, Xavier Bru de Sala, María Corral, Josep Miquel Garcia, Daniel Giralt-Miracle, Joan Guitart, Bartomeu Marí, Miquel Molins, José Montilla, Jordi Pujol, Josep Ramoneda, Joan Rigol, Leopoldo Rodés, Gemma Sendra, Pep Subirós.

A video essay by Alessandro Quaranta and Toni Cots, in collaboration with CRA’P – Creation Practices and Artistic Research. In Light / Vibration a concern emerges for those places, even anonymous, corporeal and geographical, that are responsible for momentary illuminations and visions of the soul. The research has focused on the conflictivity existing in the interpretation of reality, along with a critique of modernity, using the duplicity of opposites (light/darkness, place/space, sacred/divine), identifying them as a model to explore different authorial videos, interviews and various documentaries. Authors cited: Toni Serra / Abu-Ali, Toni Cots, Fernand Deligny, Esther Freixa i Ràfols, Gian Antonio Gilli, Ariel Jimenez, Alessandro Quaranta, Jesus Rafael Soto, Laurel Swenson, Renaud Victor, Peter Watkins. This video essay is a non-profit research project for educational purposes.  

Una gossa parint.

"As poor people we shouldn't work, being poor is already a job, isn't?"

Los Sures is the name of a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Recorded in 1991 and published in 2008, this video is not so much a portrait of the neighborhood or a memory of it, but a journey of initiation through different interior landscapes that are reflected in the urban wilderness in the evocation of death and loneliness, but also in contemplation and celebration of life.