Àltima Partners with the First Edition of 'WeCare Festival: Living to the End

Barcelona, May 18, 2018 — The WeCare Chair: End-of-Life Care at the International University of Catalonia (UIC Barcelona) awarded the prizes for the first edition of the WeCare Festival: Living to the End yesterday, during a ceremony held at CaixaForum in Barcelona.

The initiative, driven by Àltima and the Catalan Institute of Oncology, has seen a tremendous response with over 3,200 projects received from more than 125 countries: 2,171 short films, 637 photographs, and 423 short stories.

According to the Chair’s directors, Dr. Cristina Monforte and Dr. Josep Porta, “WeCare Festival: Living to the End was created with the primary goal of promoting creative representations of the final stage of life. The overwhelming response to this first edition demonstrates the need to create a space for reflection on the end of life, a topic close to everyone, and the submitted works have addressed it from various perspectives.”

After reviewing the finalists, the jury, composed of health and arts professionals including Helena Camell, Rafael de España, Jordi Puigdomènech, Rebeca Pardo, Iris Crespo, Carla Gracia, Teresa Vallès, Nadia Collette, and Montse Morcate, announced the winners:

- Short Film: The category had two awards: the first prize went to Juan Alejandro Bermúdez (Colombia) for his work “Fantastic Four,” and the second prize went to Pablo Polledri (Argentina) for the short film “Momentos.”
- Short Story: The award went to Laura Boned (Spain) for her story “Estoy contigo.”
- Photography: The Best Photography award was given to Teodoro Peláez (Philippines) for his work “Love without Borders.”

The winners also received a unique handcrafted piece created by young artist Carla Cascales Alimbau.

The festival’s closing event also featured a roundtable discussion titled “Living to the End,” moderated by journalist Marta Cáceres, with speakers from diverse fields such as cinema, art therapy, and palliative care.

Fernando Trullols, first assistant director of the film “A Monster Calls,” discussed the portrayal of the end of life in cinema based on his experience working on the acclaimed film by J.A. Bayona. Dr. Vinita Mahtani, a physician and researcher at the Research Unit of the University Hospital Nuestra Señora de Candelaria and Primary Care Management of Tenerife, shared insights on transforming scientific results into artistic and creative formats. Lastly, Dr. Jordi Trelis, medical director of hospitals at the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS) and director of Palliative Care at the ICO-ICS Oncology Network, emphasized the importance of palliative care for individuals in the final stage of life.