The Barcelona-based production company Canada is filming a spot to advertise Barcelona’s Annual Festival, which is also the source of this year’s poster image.
If you like the poster, you can pick up a copy at the Sala Ciutat (C/ Ciutat, 2) or the Palau de la Virreina (La Rambla, 99), while stocks last. You can also download it from the municipal website Barcelona Posters.
Times change, and while until now, the La Mercè poster has been the exclusive turf of artists or designers, this year, it comes from Barcelona's audiovisual talent. A video production company that has created the video clips for some of the songs you like the best is actually from Barcelona, and this year they’ve been invited to create not a poster but a teaser for the festival... which is the source of the image on the poster.
The audiovisual production company Canada created the image for La Mercè 2024. The artistic concept refers to a festa major, or annual festival, that is open to everyone. and to the huge influence of a traditional festival like this one on the city and its residents. The city offers a meeting point with music, dance and shows even for people who aren’t here to attend the festival or don’t know what La Mercè is.
On the poster, Canada offers a picture of La Mercè from the standpoint of someone seeing it for the first time. Specifically, it shows the excited viewpoint of a child looking at the fireworks enthralled. For that child, the commotion, noise, lights and giants are the festive expression of the city where they live. Where other people's senses are stimulated, this child finds peace. Barcelona’s festival enters through their home’s window and finds the one who needed it the most.
As we said, the poster image is related to a short film about a newborn baby who can’t stop crying. After an entire day, the baby stops crying when they spot a giant dancing through the window. The baby falls asleep amidst the din of the fireworks explosions.
Yes, as you can see, this year's La Mercè poster comes from an audiovisual, which was commissioned to a studio made up of experts in the world of video. It is a production company located in Poblenou, which you are probably familiar with because they've made video clips for some of your favourite artists, including Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Rosalía.
The production company was founded in 2008, right where it is located now, in Poblenou, although today it also has offices in London and Los Angeles because it's made a name for itself across the globe from Barcelona. Thanks to their total involvement in the art world, they have been commissioned to create music videos for Beck, Travis Scott, Phoenix, Katy Perry, Tame Impala and others. The directors and founding partners Nicolás Méndez and Lope Serrano founded Canada in 2008, and the producer Alba Barneda works with them.
Canada's audiovisual creations have won awards and nominations at awards such as the Cannes Lions, Grammys, Latin Grammys, Ciclope Berlin, MTV EMA, UKMVA and D&AD.
