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The Substance (PG*) + ScreenTalk with Lluís Galter

,Barbican Cinema 2
A still from the film The Substance

Blurring fiction and documentary, this film follows the strange teleportation of a town from one continent to another, exploring what ‘place’ really means.

In 2010 Chinese developers travelled to Cadaqués - a small costal Spanish fishing town beloved and made famous by Salvador Dalí - to research their plans to build a replica of the city as a holiday destination for 15,000 in Zhangzhou, 6,500 miles away. 

In Luis Glater’s film, his protagonists - an eccentric Spanish local historian and model boat-builder and a young Chinese business woman waiting for her Xiamen Bay apartment to be completed - drift from one Cadaqués to the other in a blurring of dream and reality, fiction and documentary, original and copy, that mirrors the surreal situation of a town’s teleportation.

Bookended by adverts for the Chinese and Spanish Cadaqués, and folding in elements of the mundane and the mystical, and even the Spaghetti Western, Galter’s docu-fiction flattens time and space to create a meditative hybrid of the two towns, merging their realities in a cinematic quest for the ‘substance’ of a place.

Tagged with: Cinema

Spain 2016 Dir Lluís Galter 86 min


We're delighted to welcome director Lluís Galter for a ScreenTalk, hosted by Gonzalo Herrero Delicado (architect, writer and Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts).


Curated by The Architecture Foundation

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Barbican Cinema 2

Location
Barbican Cinema 2 & 3 are located on Beech Street, a short walk from the Barbican’s Silk Street entrance. From Silk Street, you’ll see a zebra crossing that will take you across the road to the venue. 

Address
Beech Street
London
EC2Y 8DS

Public transport
The Barbican is widely accessible by bus, tube, train and by foot or bicycle. Plan your journey and find more route information in ‘Your Visit’ or book your car parking space in advance.