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Dos Cataluñas: a Netflix documentary

Catalan and European Union flags

From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Dos Cataluñas is a Spanish documentary film released in 2018 by Álvaro Longoria and Gerardo Olivares. This documentary not only explains the political situation between Catalonia and Spain, but it also goes beyond that. Dos Cataluñas starts by talking about the elections of December 21, 2017 and then spreads into the conflicts and events happened from the day the elections started. ​​

History of Catalonia: Process to Independence

Main article: History of Catalonia

Due to their history and identity, a part of the Catalan population considers themselves separate from the rest of the country. The Catalan independence movement began in 1922 when the Catalan State party was created. Catalonia was proclaimed a republic in 1931, under the name of Catalan Republic. The autonomy of the state was abolished in 1938 under Franco’s dictatorship. However, after his death in 1975, the idea of independence became a concept of autonomy. ​

The documentary focuses on the modern independence movement born in 2010 after the Spanish government considered a few of the articles of the 2006 State of Autonomy unconstitutional. One of the articles included the right to a referendum, as a response people began protesting for independence. Between 2009 and 2011, towns and municipalities held symbolic referendums. All of the results showed a majority of the “yes” vote.

In 2013 the party adopted the Catalan Declaration of Sovereignty, stating that Catalan people had the right to choose the state’s political future.

In November 2014 the Government of Catalonia announced a public referendum for independence that was considered “unconstitutional” by the Spanish Government. Despite the statement of the government, the referendum occurred resulting in 81% of votes in favor of the independence. ​

In 2016 the new president Carles Puigdemont announced another referendum held in October 2017, despite the previous statement of the Spanish Government. After a 90% vote result of pro-independence, the Catalan state proclaimed independence violating the will of the Spanish Constitution.

The documentary begins from the anomalies of the 2017 referendum in order to talk about the Catalan crisis. ​

Puigdemont voting for DUI

Main Cast

Carles Puigdemont

Carles Puigdemont

Mariano Rajoy

Puigdemont was the 130th president of the government of Catalonia, practicing in office from January 2016 until October 2017. Puigdemont is both a Spanish politician and journalist ​. Puigdemont’s family has always been a supporter of Catalonia’s independence, and Puigdemont himself has immediately become active towards this objective in his teenage years. Puigdemont has been chosen as one of the main characters for his controversial political position: he was the first President of Catalonia to refuse to take the oath of loyalty to the Spanish Constitution and the Spanish monarch. Puigdemont's status in the Spanish government is a "matter of dispute" as a consequence of Catalonia's declaration of Independence. On October 30 2017, it came to notice that Puigdemont and his government had "fled" to Belgium to avoid judiciary action upon them by the Spanish government. After self-exiling himself for four months in Belgium, the politician announced his "abandoning of the attempt to return to presidency in the place of a jailed colleague". ​

Mariano Rajoy

Rajoy has been the Prime Minister of Spain from December 2011 until June 2018. Although Spain’s economy more or less settled in 2013, the larger financial gains were not felt significantly between the middle class ​. This high unemployment rates resulted in the development of separatist movements within regions like Catalonia, demanding greater autonomy. Rajoy’s government stood against Catalonia’s demand of a “peaceful disconnection from the Spanish state”, and Rajoy himself responded with an immediate appeal to the Spanish Constitution stating that “Catalonia will not disconnect itself from anywhere”. Rajoy won the 2011 general election promising to "tackle the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis". When separatists announced a referendum in October 2017, declaring independence, Rajoy's government considered the move illegal by dissolving the parliament. On June 1st, 2018, Rajoy was forced out of office by the parliament with a no-confidence vote. He had been considered by the opposition as a "failure in taking responsibility for the party's involvement in a corruption scandal". ​

Inés Arrimadas

Arrimadas is a Spanish lawyer and politician, and spokesperson for the youth section and the leader of Citizens in Catalonia. During the process of demanding independence, Arrimadas has risen between Spanish civilians as one of the stars of Spanish unionism ​. Arrimadas became depute of the Civilian Parliament of Catalonia in 2012; moreover, 2015's autonomy elections lead her into becoming the leader of the constitutional opposition, in moments of separatists movements. During the elections of the 21st of December 2017, civilians won the election resulting in a majority of separatists. ​

Inés Arrimadas with Carles Puigdemont

Raul Romeva

Raul Romeva

Romeva is a Catalonian politician and former member of the European Parliament. During Catalonia’s demand for independence, he was one of the leaders of the “Together for Yes” electoral list. By participating in Catalonia’s illegal referendum asking for independence against the Constitution, Romeva was jailed two times by the Spanish court, charged with the accuse of “rebellion and sedition crimes” ​. In July 2015, Romeva was nominated the number one on the independent unity list for the following elections taking place in Catalunya. ​

Miquel Iceta

Iceta is the leader of the Catalan socialists (PSC). He encouraged the new government of Catalunya to primarily show they could be trusted publicly ​. Iceta has announced that 2019 will be the "big battle" and that he considers that nobody will be able to disregard the possibility of having European and municipal elections, without leaving out general and autonomy Catalonian elections ​.

Carles Mundó

Mundó is a Spanish politician and lawyer. He serves as Catalan counsellor of Justice until Puigdemont’s party was dismissed in 2017 ​. As a justice chief, Mundó had refused to appeal to Puigdemont's behaviour during the Catalonian demand of independence ​. Mundo has further announced that he would abandon his position of delegate and dedicate himself mainly to law and juridical affairs, because of "personal reasonings" ​

Xavier Domenech during the elections of 2015

Xavier Domenech

"Two Catalonia" does not only involve Spanish politicians, but also other societal figures such as historians, like in the case of Domenech. Domenech has played the role of an activist during Catalonia’s movement for independence, standing for the electoral ticket “Together We Can” ​. Domenech also further on took the decision of abandoning all of his political charges, stating that it was time to leave space to young individuals with fresh ideas and enough will to deal with Catalunya's affairs that would become key of progress for its future ​.

Storyline of Dos Cataluñas

The documentary begins with a crowd of Catalonian screaming: Independence, when a band starts playing the Catalonian hymn "Els Segadors" and everyone in the mass, wave their flag higher and with prouder while they sing at the top of their lungs their anthem. This scene gets cut with a debate in the Catalan parliament, where Puigdemont, argues about the foundation of democracy, saying this permits people to have and express their opinions; whereas Arrimadas says that the minority is being favored and, they are disregarding all the great majority. This debate was held in September 2017, when parliament approved the holding of an independence referendum.

However, after the approval of the referendum, the president of Spain, Mariano Rajoy announces that it will not be carried out due to the irregularities it presents. So, the Spanish government sent 10,000 police officers to Catalonia to block the referendum. Therefore, on the first of October, on the day of the referendum, Spanish agents blocked the access to the polling stations and prevented the locals from voting. Based on what happened, on October 8, 2017, there were manifestations in Barcelona, which is the capital of Catalonia, against independence. Soon after that, Rajoy announced that he dissolved the parliament of Catalonia and on December 21, 2017, regional elections will be held there.

On December 4 of the same year, the electoral campaigns for Catalonia began. Six out of ten independence leaders leave the Estremera prison, while four others remain imprisoned. Fast forward to the 12 of December of 2017, the mitin of Junts Per Catalunya took place, in which Puidgemont had to show up to campaign from Brussels.

Nevertheless, the documentary shows us that on the 6th of September of 2017, the Parliment Catalan voted on the holding of an independence referendum there were 72 votes in favor of it, therefore, the referendum of October 1 took place; however, Spanish law stipulates that a minimum of 90 deputies are needed to enact the law, which opposition deputies highlighted in the documentary. Also, on 21 of October 2017, Rajoy pronounced the fulfillment of article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which obliges the president of Catalonia to fulfill his obligations to decide whether to proclaim independence or to hold presidential elections. So, on the 25 of October, Puigdemont ordered for the holding of presidential elections. But on the 31 of October, Puigdemont and another five ex-counselors took refuge in Brussels, so the proclamation of independence was not achieved. Meanwhile, all the seven political parties of Catalonia were doing their campaign for the presidential elections.

Finally, on the 21 of December of 2017, the winner of the elections was Inés Arrimadas who until 2018 has continued as head of the opposition in Catalonia and national spokesperson for Ciudadanos. Until 2018, Puigdemont remains in Brussels to avoid being imprisoned in Spain and, on the 17th of May of 2018, Quim Torra assumes the Presidency of Catalonia proposed by Carles Puigdemont.​

Criticisms

Dos Cataluñas has received both positive and negative criticism from the public. This is one of the biggest conflicts in Spain and over the past years, it has become a very sensitive topic to discuss due to the different point of views. One of the main points that were argued regarding the documentary was that it put no effort into showing how they got to that point, how it was inevitable to stop what happened between the police and the people due to the tension that was built from both sides. Its barely looked at on how it all started and how it got to that level, it simply starts by showing the horrific scenes when it all went down and when the situation was already at an aggressive point, this therefore creates a confusing view of the situation for the viewer especially for those who don't live in Spain and not only that but the documentary already takes from granting that the viewer is already informed on the background of the situation, which just simply confuses the viewer and only shows one side of the story.​

However, this documentary has also been considered to not taking any sides and simply telling the events on how it happened. Where the directors didn't choose any sides of the story but simply explained in two hours how we reached this point and the tension that was built around it. The main idea of the directors was to show the world the events that happened and not only for the Spanish population. They decided this because of the images that went viral on the 1st of October of the police beating the citizens when they were trying to vote. They didn't want people to only remember those images, they wanted to go deeper and according to them, their goal was to show how they got to that point.​ even if certain critics have argued the opposite.