Famous

Ventura Pons and Lluís Llach (1st and 2nd on the left), in an independent act in 2011.

After aligning unconditionally with Puigdemont, the director of 'Què t'hi do you play Mari Pili?' he has seen how the cinemas he acquired have been sinking

The independence diatribe of the 'cunyats' of Viggo Mortensen

A shattered dream. When 'The New York Times' christened Ventura Pons as the "Catalan Woody Allen", he could not imagine that he would become as unfortunate as the American director ... although for different reasons. After directing and producing dozens of successful films through Els Films de la Rambla SL, established in 1985 ('Què t'hi jugues Mari Pili?', 'The abysmal life' or 'Caresses'), in 2014 he founded the company Raig d'Idees i Propostes Visuals SL, with a registered capital of 530,000 euros to devote to the cinematographic exhibition. That romantic, nostalgic and risky bet was the beginning of its bankruptcy .

As sole administrator, Pons threw himself into the pool (practically without water) and rented in 2014 for about 7,000 euros Lauren Gràcia cinemas - previously belonged to another great egotist in the industry, the founder of Lauren Films, Antoni Llorens, already deceased - , former social dining room during the Civil War and converted into the Texas re-release rooms . As the place was already tuned, he invested less than one million euros for digitalization, change the sound system, put new seats, make an equally new hall ... Next, the cinema becomes the hen of the golden eggs . There are queues to enter. Something unheard of in the era of streaming.

That led him to rent and renovate the old Albatros cinemas in Valencia in 2017, which he renamed Albatexas . Its purpose? Show films in original version with subtitles in Valencian and Catalan cinema in original version. At the end of 2018, it redirected the program to the shortage of the public and incorporated small format shows, current cinema at a lower price and author films. He changed his name to Cinemes Las Vegas, to twin it with the one he had acquired in Figueres in early 2018. But the one in Valencia closed in April 2019.

The trigger that has caused its sinking as an exhibitor began to take shape in 2017 during the filming of 'Miss Dalí', starring English classic actresses such as Claire Bloom or Siân Phillips and local actors such as Josep Maria Pou or Vicky Peña . His passion for the Catalan painter, as well as his love for the Costa Brava, where he has an impressive rustic stone house in front of the Salvador Dalí House-Museum in Portlligat , were plenty of reasons for him to make his strongest bet. It renewed for three million euros the Las Vegas cinemas of the center of Figueres (Costa Brava) to convert it into four projection rooms. One of them, with just over 500 seats and one of the largest screens in Catalonia. But vanity phagocytosed Pons. In April 2018, they opened with the worldwide projection of 'Miss Dalí' and just one year later, non-payments to workers began. In December 2019, the Picking SPI company started managing the rooms.

Unfortunately, Ventura Pons got rid of the halls of Valencia and Figueres for a ridiculous amount that did not serve to cover up the huge financial undercut . A former Pons worker assures LOC that "his big mistake was to put all cinemas in the name of the same company, Raig d'Idees i Propostes Visuals SL, and not to open a company for each one he acquired. In this way, if one didn't work, the company would close. " But Ventura did not listen to anyone and surrounded himself with a team of accountants who took him to the abyss. It was unfeasible that the hen of the golden eggs of the Texas of Barcelona fed the other deficit cinemas.

This situation has caused the ruin of one of the most renowned filmmakers of Catalan cinema. For this reason, Texas are currently on the tightrope: there are delays in paying rent, payrolls have not been paid for months, half of the employees are gone and those who remain are very angry because the boss denies the reality, there are delays in the payment to distributors, they appeared painted as "Ventura pays, Ventura delinquent" ... A snowball that is getting bigger and bigger.

Waiting to transfer the premises, Ventura has had to contribute private capital and has begun to get rid of several properties. As far as LOC has been able to find out, Pons has sold a large apartment in Barcelona, ​​has put up for sale its paradise in Port Lligat and for the moment still lives in the exclusive Barcelona hut in a 235 square meter house valued at about 1.25 million of euros. LOC tried to contact Els Films de la Rambla without success.

In addition, it has also ended up harming his strong political conviction. His public commitment to Procés, independence and Puigdemont has won him important enemies and innumerable doors have been closed in Madrid

Personally, neither does the sun shine. According to LOC tells one of his relatives, the director is in a great depression because his partner died last year, many of his friends have neglected him and "he is very lost and delicate in health . " And he adds: "If you talk to him, he will tell you that everything is controlled and that there is not so much."

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