In 2013 we were called to work in Ciutat Meridiana, the headlines called Villa Desahucio and journalists approached, from time to time, only to talk about its problems: stoppage, eviction and inequality.
The first thing we did was to find a word to counteract that label. According to the dictionary, an exhuciated person was theoretically a hopeless person. But what we were seeing was neighbors gathered in theirs squares, going up and down their tails to go to work or study, on the escalators or the Papamobile . We saw people without prejudices who also enjoyed their PARKS AND EQUIPMENT. We see joy, solidarity and, above all, we see Esperanza.
There were other realities and it was important to start talking about them; of these other possible universes, invisible for decades by institutional discourse and hegemonic media narrative. That’s why and that’s the nation City of Hope
, to counteract that negative imaginary that existed, making communication and education, creating an alternative media narrative.
Filming Ciutat Esperança, ninth season, 2017
In 2018, Barcelona Provincial Council awarded this project the first site of the Rueda Prize among 52 community action experiences of the province of Barcelona. The award received it elParlante But this award is not only ours, it belongs to the young people who have grown in our work, as much as we have believed in them. It also belongs to the residents of the neighborhood who, through their joy and solidarity, have helped us to explain to the world, or at least to Barcelona, what they really are.
These other forms of relationship, these other possibilities, are what sustain recognition as what we have received. This is an award to the Awareness, participation, collective creation, the connection of people with their territory, in an honest and different way, from love for shared space, from the appreciation of one’s own, from the construction of new citizens.
Presentation of a short film on bullying and debate with different agents of the territory, 2016
Almost six years have passed since we started the first season of Ciutat Esperança, and what began as an audiovisual co-creation project to promote the good things of Ciutat Meridiana has become a space for meeting, expression and debate on the different realities of the neighborhood, to positively value its social and cultural diversity.
These are the citizens who come explaining this other city, through
documentary and fiction shorts
participatory. And we could not have achieved it without the unconditional support of Community Plan, Centre Cruïlla, La Meri Productions (former participants of Ciutat Esperança) and Fundación Salesianos Sant Jordi. Their way of working, of approaching the community, has been crucial in this journey.
Afritos short filming, 2017
Perhaps this is what has been awarded this time, the network that has been woven in the territory, the involvement of people, the process In the long term… Or maybe, simply, the existence of a place called is being recognized City Hope that, although it does not appear in the news on TV, it exists.
Cortometraje “A moment”. 6 minutes. City of Hope 2014