Claudia Gracia

Aldo is a travelling mattress salesman who suffers from insomnia. On his journeys through desert, forest and factory somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, hypotheses of how to live with desires, money and freedom are put forward.

FUTURO SOLAR is a utopian adventure film that explores the questions posed by Thoreau in his essay “Walden”: “a life led in nature is a true life led by a free man who longs to break free from the bondages of industrial society.” In 16 mm, this film explores the many different ways there are to live in and experience the world. Following this winding path is a “citizen” who becomes a “man”.

Delving into the work of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and after studying real-life cohabitation at the La Bardal eco-social laboratory, Claudia Gracia attempts to create a film that navigates locations in Navarra, the Basque Country and Cantabria. With a small technical team, a group of professional and non-professional actors and a focus on hands-on, non-productive experience, she endeavours to create by chance, building her very own utopia on set. 

BIO

Claudia Gracia (Madrid, 1995) studied at the Madrid Film School (ECAM), where she specialised in Documentary Film. She was awarded an Erasmus Plus grant at the LUCA School of Arts (Hogeschool Sint-Lukas Brussel) to represent Spain as part of the “Young European Film Forum” in Brussels. She also undertook a St Petersburg Art Residency (Russia) at the  Pushkinskaya-10 Arts Centre. She is currently working on the film ‘Futuro Solar’ as part of a postgraduate programme at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (University of the Basque Country). She was also awarded the ACCIONA Grant for the Master of Arts and Artistic Professions at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid at the Escuela SUR Art School, which will take place from October 2021 to June 2023.

Her work focuses on the audiovisual exploration of utopian societies as a critical response to present times. Her most notable influences are Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and her main interests lie in the relationship between man and nature, the sensory exploration of landscapes and the pursuit of new ideas that bring into question our current model of society. 

RESIDENCY

Claudia Gracia is one of the four selected artists-in-residence for audiovisual projects that are currently underway, as part of the joint programme by Cineteca film archive and Matadero Madrid's Centre for Artists in Residence.