Vida en ombres (Life in Shadows): The Director’s Dream
The D’A – Barcelona Film Festival returns like spring every year. Among all the premieres that flourish in Barcelona thanks to D’A, there’s always one special one, which represents the D’A itself.The commission is no small feat. Each filmmaker has contributed their own touch, and the D’A has been greatly enriched by this archive of perspectives on cinema that ultimately speak to how filmmakers perceive this festival.
The festival is also a family. United by a love of cinema. From within this family comes the director of the D’A 2025 Short Film, Santi Gila, who has been part of the festival since its inception.
The initial spark for Vida en ombres (a title that pays homage to Llorenç Llobet-Gràcia’s film) can be found in a conversation Gila had with the festival’s director, Carlos R. Ríos. Specifically, about a dream Ríos had: the blank movie screen. “White is the sum of all colors and, at the same time, it is absolute emptiness, nothingness. That suggested image reminded me of the decaying cinema in Goodbye Dragon Inn, where spectators watch the last screening at a neighborhood cinema. In that film by Tsai Ming-liang, the spectators were ghosts inhabiting a haunted place,” explains Santi Gila. Ghosts and voices… in this case, those of our dear Carla Linares and Sònia Masuda.
Vida en ombres speaks to the concerns of many filmmakers and cinephiles today: between nostalgia and hope for the eternal ritual of watching movies together.
Luis Buñuel said that cinema was an involuntary imitation of dreams. We will continue dreaming, with Santi Gila and as a family.
Pictures ⓒ Óscar Fdez. Orengo