Joan Gonzalez Turns 70
He texted me yesterday, “watching?”, as he has done dozens of times, when “our” football club FCBarcelona plays. If I am not at the computer here in Denmark, he updates me on how the match goes. I am writing about Joan Gonzalez, the smiling man to the right who turns 70 the second of August. The selfie was taken, when we were together at the Camp Nou on one of many festive occasions on location.
Football is only one of our common passions, let me give you some history:
Joan is a visionary, some will say a dreamer, I will add that many of his dreams have and will come through. Step by Step as his slogan is. When I met him in Granada 25 years ago for the first EDN documentary workshop in Spain, he was one of the participants and made his first documentary pitch. Not very convincing. But he was thrilled about the format, and he took it all to Barcelona, and became the organiser of what is now a very well established international event, DocsBarcelona. At that time he was managing a local tv station and doing a lot of training, which is still very much on his agenda.
He is definitely a talent scout, his office is full of talented carefully picked young people, who get the injection of documentary enthusiasm from their director.
Joan is a man with high ethical standards, who is not afraid to use the word ”trust”, when he describes, what he wants people to associate with his company. He has lost some battles with his idealistic attitude but he has always come back full of optimism and with new ideas. I sometimes have the impression that when he wakes up in the morning, he has a new project! The latest is “nextus” that aims at making documentaries part of the school curriculum. Not only in Catalunya and Spain.
DocsBarcelona is much more than a festival. I have always been crazy about the initiative “Documentary of the Month”. Overall I would say as it has been written by Joan himself, “the mission is to contribute to society’s cultural enrichment through the audiovisual medium”. As with the “Documentary of the Month” Joan has always thought of ways to reach the audience. I think it (also) comes with his background at the TV3, the local tv station.
My wife and have seen more of Joan and his wife Montse during the last years. They have visited Copenhagen in March for the CPH:DOX and have enjoyed our capital and surroundings, as we have done in Barcelona and in the apartment in Palamos at the coast. Our acquaintance goes back to before their kids were born, Marti and Berta. It has been great to see and hear about them growing up, most often through words conveyed by their proud father.
Looking fwd, to see you and the family again – and to sing Jacques Brel again in your car…
Congratulations!
