The award-winning and famous film “El 47” has made the eyes of the people of Barcelona fall on Nou Barris, a historically forgotten district that now, in the 21st century, is beginning to emerge from the ostracism to which the city condemned it for so long. The film about Manolo Vital has put the neighborhood back on the map, but many years ago there was a group of videographers who were determined to portray the most forgotten neighborhood in the city.
It was in 1982, when the Video-Nou collective, in collaboration with the Servei de Vídeo Comunitari, produced the documentary “Los Jóvenes del Barrio”, an in-depth look at the life of young people in the Canyelles neighborhood at a time when no one was looking that way.
Video-Nou, committed cinema in the Barcelona of the 70s
As they explain at the Reina Sofia Art Museum, where they keep a copy of this documentary, Video-Nou was a collective created in 1977, constituted two years later as the management team of the so-called Servei de Vídeo Comunitari, conceived with the aim of public service.
This group was a pioneer in the country in the use of portable video equipment, with the intention of launching a type of (counter)informative and activist television, rooted in certain conceptual artistic practices and institutional criticism, with members coming from the fields of journalism, sociology, anti-psychiatry, teaching, visual and performing arts and architecture.
The Canyelles documentary is not the only one they made. The Reina Sofia preserves thirteen recordings of the group’s activity, along with a collection of documentary material consisting of photographs, articles, press clippings and publications. Some of their works show the historical moment in which the CNT/FAI libertarian and trade union movement reached its peak, as in Huelga de gasolineras ( 1977), Jornades Llibertàries Internacionals 1977 Barcelona (International Libertarian Days 1977 Barcelona) or Actuació d’Ocaña i Camilo (Performance of Ocaña and Camilo) in 1977, among others.
From 1978 onwards, the Video-Nou collective was concerned with documenting the social changes produced by the gentrification processes that took place in various neighborhoods of cities in Catalonia, visible in pieces such as Canyelles (projecte Ateneus) (Canyelles [Ateneo project]) from 1978. This ensemble constitutes a fundamental block for understanding the historical events and social processes that surrounded the period of the Transition in Catalonia and the rest of Spain.
The Youth of the neighborhood, the forgotten Nou Barris
The documentary of the Jóvenes del bario captures, in 39 minutes, the voices of young people from the neighborhood of Canyelles and the surrounding area as they discuss issues such as education, employment, leisure, drugs and delinquency. In addition, it addresses gender relations, learning Catalan, music and prison-related experiences. The project also includes perspectives from mothers with diverse family situations, offering a complete view of the social dynamics of the neighborhood at the time.
The documentary was requested by the Sociological Institute of the University of Utrecht and presented at the World Congress of Sociology in Mexico City in August 1982, highlighting its academic and social relevance.
The documentary can be viewed on youtube along with other works by the collective (search for “Video-nou” to find them). Otherwise, both the Reina Sofia and the MACBA have a repository that allows you to see them, of course, going in situ to the institutions.