Barcelona, España
The consolidation of Catalan documentary cinema in the 21st century international sphere owes much to an existing context of creative freedom, less dependent on market laws or short-term policies. This freedom, often emerging out of university initiatives, has attracted young filmmakers wishing to explore the borders between documentary and fiction. The present article examines a number of their works, focusing on the use of multilingualism as a way to underscore the commitment of these documentaries to the reality they seek to represent. We argue that multilingualism as a phenomenon does not imply an obstacle to the presence of Catalan, as is evidenced by the partly autobiographical fictions produced by directors who use Catalan as a vehicular language to represent intimate experiences. Rather, multilingualism is becoming a style in itself and a way of ensuring that the Castilian language is not simply imposed for commercial reasons, a factor which has seriously affected the world of conventional fiction.