A Toast to St. Martirià - by Albert Serra (Paperback)

About the Book

""Cinema should be this: making perception of time and space more intense." The town of Banyoles, an hour and a half from Barcelona, hosts a festival every year on the third weekend in November named after its patron, Saint Martyrianus (or, in Catalan, Martiriáa). There are horse races, there are local delicacies and dances, and there is always someone elected to be the festival's pregoner--literally, "town cryer." This person is given the signal honor of opening the fair with a celebratory speech, and in 2022, the controversial and acclaimed filmmaker Albert Serra, born in Banyoles, was handed the microphone. He opened his mouth. . . and this book emerged, whole and entirely improvised. Puckish, confrontational, subversive, and always dripping with Serra's impulsive lust for life, A Toast to St Martiriáa is a headlong journey through the director's formative years and early relationships, all played out against the nightlife of his hometown. These are the experiences that have shaped his own peculiar conception of the movies, art, and life, focused not on metropolitan glamor but the slower pace of the countryside, the little moments lost between edits"--

Book Synopsis

"Cinema should be this: making perception of time and space more intense."

The town of Banyoles, an hour and a half from Barcelona, hosts a festival every year named after its patron, Saint Martyrianus (or, in Catalan, Martirià). There are horse races, there are local delicacies and dances, and there is always someone elected to be the festival's pregoner--literally, "town cryer." This person is given the signal honor of opening the fair with a celebratory speech, and in 2022, the controversial and acclaimed filmmaker Albert Serra, born in Banyoles, was handed the microphone. He opened his mouth. . . and this book emerged, whole and entirely improvised.

Puckish, confrontational, subversive, and always dripping with Serra's impulsive lust for life, A Toast to St Martirià is a headlong journey through the director's formative years and early relationships, all played out against the nightlife of his hometown. These are the experiences that have shaped his own peculiar conception of the movies, art, and life, focused not on metropolitan glamor but the slower pace of the countryside, the little moments lost between edits.

Review Quotes

A Millions Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2025

"A thoughtful. . . ode to small-town culture, parties and playfulness. . . . In a world where loneliness has become an epidemic, Serra's fierce love of his Banyoles community, and his conviction that it gave him a resilience he would not otherwise have, feels poignant." --Julia Lloyd George, Times Literary Supplement

Praise for the Films of Albert Serra

"Serra creates rigid, highly pressurized images on the verge of shattering with the force of mystery and desire." --Richard Brody, The New Yorker

"Serra's punk outlook lends him a fresh cinematic language imbued with the wisdom of film history and the daring of modern art." --Luke Hicks, Paste Magazine

"A feverish and haunting but also wry and meditative rumination on power, secrecy and the color of clouds over water at sunset." --A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"Pacifiction is an intoxicating pleasure." --Jonathan Romney, Financial Times

"Pacifiction emerges as one of Serra's more seductive efforts." --Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Albert Serra is a Spanish independent filmmaker and manager of the production company Andergraun Films. He is best known for his films Pacifiction (2022), winner of the Louis Delluc Prize; The Death of Louis XIV (2016); and The Story of My Death (2013).

Matthew Tree is a writer and translator in English and Catalan. He has published fourteen works of fiction and nonfiction in both English and Catalan. His work has appeared in Catalonia Today, the Times Literary Supplement, and El Punt Avui. Matthew currently lives between Barcelona and the lakeside town of Banyoles.