News

Today’s Sunday. Three days of non-stop emerging culture might be wearisome. However, the festival is still up and running, hundreds of people strolling around Recoleta enter the Cultural Centre, and music is already playing under a comforting sun.

In terms of shows, the appearances by Fidel and Los Umbanda will imbue the afternoon with their reggae and their mixture of races. Also appearing today are The Siniestros and The Tandooris with their retro garage, and Pablo Dacal with his popular sensitivity.

As for literature, there’ll be poetry readings by Mariana Suozzo and Alfredo Jaramillo ("Jara" to his friends) with music by Adrián Villar Rojas.

In every edition of Ciudad Emergente there is a special place for cinema at Espacio Bafici. And today is the turn of three already mythical figures of the rock culture: the beach boy Brian Wilson, the late leader of The Clash Joe Strummer and the dark angel Nacho Vargas, the Spanish singer-songwriter.

The cinema lineup for today opens at 4pm with “Carretera” by Francisco Deborja, dedicated to the Asturian Vegas. According to the critics, it is a film of non-reconciliation, which narrates from the shadows certain aspects that other bio-pics don’t even deal with.

Ciudad Emergente’s impressive selection of music and urban culture could not possibly have gone unnoticed: today, with one more festival day to go, the first press reports have already appeared.

The ones on the roof terrace. The others at the Villa Villa hall. All of them, each with their own style, embark on a non-stop journey into psychedelia and the garage proto-punk of the sixties. Join the trip!

Hundreds of young couples, middle-aged ladies and gentlemen, children and people of all ages walking on their own around the Plaza Francia square head towards the Recoleta Cultural Centre. Perhaps many of them don’t even know what this is all about, but with a good dose of curiosity they walk by the central corridor. The second edition of Ciudad Emergente, on this June Sunday, is reaching its peak of visitors.

Second are part of the international committee of this festival, and their show this evening ensured them a soon return to this southern land. José Angel Frutos, Jorge Guirao, Nando Robles, Fran Guirao and Javi Vox hit the stage amidst a certain indifference from the audience but, little by little, with the intensity of their songs, they won them over. The ovation at the end of their performance attested to it.

Onda Vaga on Thursday. Yesterday, Juana Molina. What’s in store for us today? For a start, more bands, more poetry readings, more films and street dance. The idea is to make of this third day of Ciudad Emergente an occasion on a par with the previous ones, with a new surprise artist closing the night and the appearances by Norma and Banda de Turistas, the screenings of “Simpathy for the Devil,” “Together” and “Jonathan Richman: Take me to the Plaza,” and many more activities.

Within the framework of the section that Ciudad Emergente devotes to film, the Espacio Bafici, three movies screen today, catering to the most discerning rock film palates. At 4pm is the turn of “Together,” the movie which the Dane Janik Splidsbo dedicated to Andrea Prodan, Luca’s brother. The 66-minute long film delves into the relationship between the two brothers and deals with the impact of the Luca myth on Andrea’s life.

At 6pm comes a classic: “Simpathy for the Devil,” the mythical encounter between the Rolling Stones and the famed filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard in the late 60s. Though not among the best movies of the Frenchman –a quintessential figure of the nouvelle vague–, the film provides a great opportunity to peep into the intimate world of the Stones in one of their most creative periods. An absolute gem: the process of creation of the big hit after which the documentary is named.