Barcelona residents usually rush through Plaza Catalunya, but this Saturday many people found a good reason to stop. The third edition of the Festival of Ideas and Culture (FIC) of elDiario.es brought together thousands of people in the center of the Catalan capital, including hundreds of elDiario.es members, to claim free journalism, explore current global challenges and also have a good time with doses of humor and music.
From the Gaza war to the constant struggle and the time needed to recognize the truth; from the challenges of current journalism to the new stories that teach us to “think hard”. And the writer Margaret Adwood, who confessed to the FIC audience what books she was reading, like a big star. All this hosted by Marc Giró as master of ceremonies and with the humor of Bob Pop, the best ruins (including that of Gemma Nierga), an unforgettable show by Juan Diego Botto and Nur Levi, and the concerts of Sidonie and Júlia Colom on Friday. and the sessions, on Saturday, of DJs Oro Jondo and Nòvies.
“The information must be aimed at the readers and not at the algorithm,” said the director of elDiario.es, Ignacio Esolar, at the table on the challenges of current journalism that opened the day on Saturday after the meeting with partners and members on Friday. School and director The avant-gardeJordi Juan; the director of the MacawEsther Vera; and the former director of The country Soledad Gallego Díaz, stressed the importance of member and subscriber communities to ensure editorial independence and face pressures.
Atwood, in conversation with the deputy director of elDiario.es, María Ramírez, reviewed the raw material of her literature, which coincides on many occasions with current events: women’s rights, the more than possible re-election of Donald Trump in the United States. or the rise of totalitarianism. But he also had time to detail the books the author reads, her vision of old age or her future publications: she announced that she is preparing a memoir that will be published in the fall of 2025.
At a time when telling the truth involves risk, the panel “El Rincón de Pensar”, the philosophy and thought section of elDiario.es, analyzed the truth in the public sphere with the thinkers Remedios Zafra and Santiago Alba Rico and the director of the CECC, Judit Carrera. From the table, moderated by the deputy director of elDiario.es, Neus Tomàs, came the demand for a “resistance movement” against technological mediators who falsely present themselves as neutral.
The Saturday morning program at the FIC was completed by comedian Bob Pop with the monologue of his most personal diary, “Symetrical Days”, in which he reflects on the time he has lived since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Just before lunch, Javier and Sergio Torres, better known as the Torres Brothers, exhibited their culinary arts on the stage of the Plaza Catalunya in a gastronomic battle with a Catalan accent that pitted “esqueixada” cod against “recapte” coca.
The podcast elDiario.es, “A topic a day”, also had its space at the FIC. Deputy director Juanlu Sánchez and journalist Olga Rodríguez explained the current situation of the war in Gaza, with the shocking testimony of Kayed Hamad, a translator who lives in the strip. “Today is the 262nd day of this damn war that cannot be called war because it is genocide, the destruction has reached everything,” he denounced.
Sánchez and Rodríguez opened the FIC afternoon program dedicated to podcasts, which complemented ‘Carne Cruda’ by Javier Gallego and Violeta Múñoz and ‘La Ruina’ with Ignasi Taltavull and Tomàs Fuentes, with the collaboration of Gemma Nierga and its ruin on a gynecological level visit. For their part, Gallego and Muñoz, led by Santi Balmes, Begoña Gómez Urzáiz, Andrea Gumes, La Prados and Raquel Hervás, thought “hard” and came to a conclusion: “Less therapy and more burning containers.”
With a smile thanks to La Ruina and hair on end after Botto and Levi’s performance in ‘And one morning everything burned’, the FIC faced the end of the party of DJs Oro Jondo and Nòvies to dance the end of the day in which the people of Barcelona will remember that they stopped for hours and filled the Plaza Catalunya.
