City of the Dead

(Ciudad de los muertos)

Miguel Eek / 2019 / 56 min
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  • SomCinema

    Best Feature Doc

  • Mallorca Cinema

    Best Feature Doc, Best Editing

  • Firenze Film Festival

    Best Feature Doc

  • DOCFEED Documentary Film Festival

  • Doxa Festival Vancouver

  • FIPADOC Int'l Documentary Festival

  • SEMINCI Film Festival

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Spanish and Catalan with English subtitles

A documentary about death as interpreted by the living. Filmed in the cemetery of Palma, Miguel Eek, the author of Life and Death of an Architect, delves into the stories of those who live day by day with death. Through real and everyday situations, we get closer to an unfamiliar reality experienced firsthand by the residents of the city of the deceased. There is Biel, the cemetery caretaker; José, the sales agent who deals with the families; David and Sergio, the embalmers; Jaume and Mohammed, gardeners; José Luis, in the crematory; and Manuela, who works in cleaning. Through their relationships, sometimes dramatic and at other times comedic, we discover the unknown world of death, as well as the personal stories of its inhabitants.

Press

“A warm and fear-taming portrait of the human condition.” – Bianca-Olivia Nita, Modern Times Review

“A fierce look into the banality of death.” – M.J, Doxa

“A must see. Not recommendable for those with heart problems.” – Jennifer Hammersmark, Medium

About the Director
Miguel Eek is a filmmaker born in Madrid in 1982 and raised between Mallorca, Stockholm, and Barcelona, where he graduated in Documentary Filmmaking at the Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (ESCAC). He completed his training at the Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki and other workshops such as Eurodoc.

In 2008 he founded Mosaic, a production company specializing in documentary cinema that produces all his current work as well as that of other filmmakers.

His films have been shown at international festivals such as IDFA, Docaviv, DocEdge Seminci, Fipadoc, Doxa, Makedox, Atlàntida, and Cinemed, where they have won a dozen international awards.

Miguel is a member of Eurodoc, Docma, APAIB, and ACIB. He has been the artistic director of MajorDocs since 2019.

Notes on Film

“Over the past few years, I have visited several funeral homes to say goodbye to relatives. Frequently, and much to my surprise, the deceased were not the protagonists. There was no talk of death, nor of the dead, but of any other, more pleasant and familiar subject. In our fast-paced society, where youth and success prevail, death remains a taboo, generating a curiosity silenced in the form of conflicting emotions. The cemetery and the funeral home, as spaces of death, also elicit contradictory reactions: fascination and, at the same time, prejudices and anxieties. These places are both reviled and poetic. This documentary aims to search for answers to the question of how to relate to this fascinating phase of life, especially for those who deal with it daily.”

– Miguel Eek, Director

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