'The Empire of Fiction: Antiquity through Cinema' Workshop *NEW*
1 October 2026 – 3 December 2026 · 17:00
Centre Cívic Urgell, la Nova Esquerra de l'Eixample, Eixample
This course proposes a chronological journey of more than three millennia through the history of Antiquity and the biblical world, using cinema not as mere entertainment but as a tool for cultural analysis. The aim of the sessions is to examine scientifically the gap between the myths proposed by commercial fiction and the certainties offered by current historical and archaeological research. To do so, we will delve into the workings of cinematic language itself. We will decipher how the aesthetics of a sequence can be more revealing than an academic text, and how a director's choices determine our view of the past. Throughout the course we will discover how cinema tends to simplify complex social structures, modernise the motives of ancient politics and project contemporary dilemmas onto the marble of the past. We will learn to “read” images in order to understand how film has constructed our memory of ancient history. Teacher: Jaume Serra.
Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona · checked on 8 September 2026