Monica Del Raval is a documentary of a prostitute who came to Barcelona and made the Raval her home.
Monica herself is, well ‘eye-catching’ to say the least. The documentary is long, and narrates most of her life. I can’t say that I liked it beyond the excitement of watching the Raval on camera, but it does give an interesting perspective of our little world. I watched it last year in preparation of all things, for a job interview.
For some reason, at the time I watched it I thought it was a docu-drama with imaginary characters. I was wrong. Last night, bathed in the bright strobe of another aspiring film maker, the lady herself walked past us on the terrace. She was wearing the same red dress as in the picture below. Monica del Raval is real!
Watch the documentary for free on the Culture Unplugged website.
I just turned on my TV and saw a journalist interviewing her 5 minutes before seeing this. Apparently today is the first day of the latest anti-prostitution initiative of the Ajuntament… I’ll have to check out the film.
Hmm interesting, I’ll have to check the documentary out. That’s pretty cool that you saw her in person. The Raval always has such interesting people wandering around.
Anti prostitution? In Barcelona? I have to check this out…
Another of the great personalities of the Raval is Carmen de Mairena. She’s a 70-something year old transexual performance artist who models herself after the great Sara Montiel. She has (or had) a bar in Raval called Cangrejo, not sure if it’s still around. Anyway, she was in the news a year or two back for renting out the extra rooms in her flat to local prostitutes to give them a safe place to work. The Ajuntament in its infinite wisdom of course fined her mercilessly…