Photo via: Cast 4
The movie director Woody Allen could soon get a museum in Barcelona dedicated to his film career, La Vanguardia reports.
The Spanish production company Mediapro is behind the future Woody Allen Center, which would be based in a former arts and crafts school right at the heart of Barcelona’s gothic neighborhood.
Jaume Roures—a personal friend of the director and owner of Mediapro, which has produced three recent films by Allen—told La Vanguardia that, upon seeing the museum proposal, the famous New Yorker was surprised but pleased, and gave the project the green light.
Allen’s close bond with Spain began in earnest in 2002, when he traveled to Oviedo to pick up the prestigious Príncipe de Asturias Arts Award in recognition of his outstanding career (Frank Gehry also nabbed the award last year: see Frank Gehry Gives Spanish Critics the Finger in Oviedo).
In 2008, the small city—which, according to the Independent, Allen described as “delicious, exotic, beautiful, clean, pleasant, tranquil, and pedestrianized”—erected a life-size Woody Allen bronze statue in the center of town, to reciprocate his kind words.
Now it is the turn of Barcelona, the sunny location that served as backdrop to Allen’s most successful film in recent years, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). (Art features prominently in the movie, with Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz playing a pair of artists in a violent relationship—see In What Hollywood Films Does Art Play a Starring Role?). The city could soon honor the filmmaker with the first museum exclusively dedicated to his oeuvre.
The proposed venue, La Llotja, is a 17th century building that would offer more than 2,000 square meters across three levels to survey Allen’s career and best-loved films, including Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).
The Woody Allen Center would complete Barcelona’s generous cultural offerings, which include the Pablo Picasso Museum, MACBA (MACBA Director Bartomeu Marí Sacks Curators and Resigns Following Sodomy Sculpture Scandal), the Music Museum, and the Cannabis Museum (see World’s Biggest Cannabis Museum Opens in Barcelona).