“NY Times” explains why Catalan should be in cinema too

A recent article in “The New York Times” explains the reasons why Catalan language should be in the Catalan cinemas too. Nowadays only 3 % of the movies are doubled in Catalan; the rest are only in Spanish. The article says that Catalan language “is heard just about everywhere except in the movies” and defines the language as the “Catalonian soul”. Spain’s obsession to wound the language is explained too when a Catalan minister explains that, when serving the army, “he spent three days in solitary confinement after officers overheard him speaking Catalan”. It shows, as well, as Catalan and Spanish relations are worst anytime: Catalonia’s Federation of Audiovisual Producers, for instance, last year broke away from Spain’s state organization.

In spite of all of this, Emma Collective has expressed their concern about some aspects of the article in a very interesting note where they say that:” a deep aversion to everything Catalan is still common in Spanish official circles, especially among the military and the police. The case of the young conscript who was arrested in 1977 for speaking in Catalan with his comrades is not a thing of the past. Most recently, Mr Alexander Alland, a former anthropology professor at Columbia who has a good knowledge of the situation in Catalonia, brought to the attention of the New York Times, among others, the case of a young mother who was held by the police at Girona Airport and then charged with disrespect for the authorities because she had addressed the agents in Catalan. This was in 2009” .