THE BOY WITH THE FILM REELS /

A city under constant threat where the most important thing is to learn how to survive. A murder that will reveal a secret meant to be never discovered.

Barcelona, 1945. Nil Roig is a young boy who spends the days on his bicycle, carrying old film reels from one cinema to another and dreaming that one day he will be a projectionist in one of those movie theatres. On the day of his thirteenth birthday he is a witness of a crime committed in the staircase of his house. While the murderer escapes after having threatened him with death if he does not keep his mouth shut, the dying man gives him a mysterious picture card of a film actor from the pre-war times. The object searched for and desired by the low-keyed figures of an ex Gestapo commander and a Francoist police officer. The fact that the man while giving the card to Nil, whispers the name of David, the boy’s father, who disappeared on the day when the city was taken over by the victorious army will prompt him to uncover a mystery of the past for which he will pay a high price.

In the Barcelona of light and shade, El chico de las bobinas tells us about the unparalleled strength of the women, victims of the war, who showed the world how to survive, about the local movie theatres, a refuge where people could dream in the turbulent after-war years and about ruined childhood and genuine sorrows, with the plot set in the determined – but also universal time. Far beyond the suffering for what was lost and the struggle for survival El chico de las bobinas is an homage to the mother figure and to the eternal magic of the cinema.