Welcome, everyone, to the official opening of the 2022 Mercè Festival.

 

What a pleasure, and what a great joy it is to see each other again! It is always exciting to celebrate our city's festivals.

 

And this year, even more so! This year we see La Mercè return to our streets and squares in all its glory!

 

At last! At last, the people of the city will be out filling Barcelona with music and dance, with traditions and novelties, with excitement and an outpouring of happiness.

 

We will once again reach for the skies building human towers, join in the processions with the giants and big heads, enjoy music, from the most modern to the most traditional, fill our streets and squares with street arts, run beneath the sparks of the fire runs, and look up to the sky to marvel at the musical firework display, hugging our loved ones, as depicted in this year’s poster, looking to the future with hope.

 

Because we deserve to go back to experiencing our Annual Festival with the intensity of always. Or even more!

 

It will last for 3 days and 3 nights, with 23 venues, 100 bands, 80 companies and more than 250 organisations.

 

The artists will take over the city with the only limit being their imagination, because La Mercè is all about creativity and innovation.

 

And we will once again meet the Giants, the Eagle, the Ox and all the other beings that are part of Barcelona's festive imaginary. Because La Mercè is also tradition in its purest form.

 

And because it is the city's neighbourhoods that make Barcelona, you can experience La Mercè there too. From the Parc de l'Aqüeducte to Ciutat Meridiana, from the Barcelona of Joan Miró to Parc de la Trinitat, Zona Universitària and Ronda St Antoni. Because culture empowers us.

 

In short, we will once again show that Barcelona is strong and full of confidence in itself, that it is more alive and more active than ever, and that its heart, made up of all the city’s residents, is beating enthusiastically in all its neighbourhoods.

 

And who better to deliver the opening speech of this Mercè Festival than Carla Simón, a young woman from Barcelona, and one of the most widely recognised film-makers here at home and abroad.

 

A director with her own style, who captures the universal aspects of daily life and transforms what happens on our shores into something international.

 

A creator who is able to speak to us of universal challenges from a local, intimate viewpoint, with a social and feminist perspective.

 

Her work features all aspects of life: work, the land, family, gender, class, precariousness, uncertainty, anguish, but also fraternity, solidarity, union; joy, hope, the fight for a better tomorrow.

 

In short, Carla demonstrates that she has the sensibility that we need to rebuild our world. Because while the pandemic appears to be behind us, the challenges remain very real.

 

Today we face a crisis due to the increasing cost of living. And it leads to the paradox, as shown in Carla's film Alcarràs, that farmers receive a paltry price while the public pays an exorbitant one. No, working in the fields shouldn’t have to be a heroic act, nor filling the fridge a mission impossible.

 

For that reason, no other battle is more important over the coming months than guaranteeing a fair winter, where putting food on the table is not a luxury, where staying warm is not a privilege, and where paying the rent or the mortgage is not a miracle. We need to work together, all the institutions to ensure a winter with cupboards that are full, a good roof over our heads and a warm home.

 

Our responsibility, that of all the institutions, is to ensure we are able to protect citizens from the storms we have to weather. This is a time to be brave, bolder and more daring than ever in our policies.

 

And looking further ahead, we need to take these times of uncertainty and use them as an opportunity to learn, to change and to imagine the city of the future. To reinvent ourselves and leave a better world and a better city for our children.

 

A city and a world that are more united and more just, with better public services.

 

More sustainable. Because the dilemma is not economy or ecology – as one cannot exist without the other – but rather past or future.

 

A city that is more innovative and advanced, creating wealth and jobs, that knows what it wants and knows how to choose.

 

In short, a more human city, one that prioritises life, looking after ourselves and each other, like the three generations hugging one another on the beautiful poster by David de las Heras, facing our challenges united without leaving anyone behind, and a city which looks to the future with confidence and pride in itself.

 

Carla, Barcelona is very fortunate to have you as the speaker, and we are very lucky to have creators that challenge us in this way. You deserve an Oscar but what you’ll always have for sure is our deepest recognition.

 

And I couldn’t end without mentioning this year's guest city, our dear friend Rome. Rome founded Barcino, without which we surely would not exist, and today, more than 2,000 years on, the Italian community is the biggest international community in our city.

 

In Italy, this Sunday, all of Europe will be watching as the country faces a crucial election in which it is vital to put the brakes on the far right and from which I hope democracy will emerge stronger.

 

And I would also like to give a special mention to the guest city of 2023, Kyiv.

 

Barcelona has always felt very close to cities besieged by war, which we also suffered in the past. From here, I would like to send our warmest thoughts during these tragic times you are living through, our admiration for the bravery you have shown and our heartfelt desire that next year in Barcelona we will be celebrating the return of peace and the safeguarding of democracy.

 

Because La Mercè is, above all, a celebration! Celebrating that we are alive and that we are united in facing all the challenges that may come our way.

 

Let La Mercè begin!

 

VÍDEO