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In 2010, a delegation from China Merchants Group visited Cadaqués, the iconic Catalan coastal town associated with Salvador Dalí, to plan a full-scale replica in China. Six years later, Tingting, a young entrepreneur from Xiamen, travels to her new flat in Kadakaisi, the Chinese Cadaqués, for a weekend away. The film navigates between the original and the replica, weaving together landscape, memory, and the question of what makes a place real.
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When a Catalan fishing village is replicated in China
The Substance is a 2016 Spanish-Swiss art documentary directed by Lluís Galter that poses a quietly unsettling question: if every architectural detail of a town is perfectly copied, does the copy inherit its soul?
In 2010, a delegation from the China Merchants Group arrived in Cadaqués, a historic fishing village on the Catalan Costa Brava internationally known as the refuge and inspiration of painter Salvador Dalí. Their mission was to document the town in order to construct a large-scale replica near Xiamen on the southeast coast of China. The result was Kadakaisi. Six years later, young entrepreneur Tingting buys a flat there and decides to spend a weekend in her new apartment, seeking distance from the relentless pace of city life. Through her journey, the film moves between the landscapes of Cadaqués, Kadakaisi, Xiamen, and Cap de Creus, holding the original and the copy in constant, meditative tension.
Lluís Galter was born in Figueres, Girona, in 1983 and studied audiovisual communication at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. The Substance is his second feature-length documentary, co-written with Ivan Pintor and Irene Masdeu, with cinematography by Jordi Figueras. The film is produced by Lastor Media and Mallerich Films Paco Poch (Spain) alongside Alina Film (Switzerland), with support from Televisió de Catalunya.
The film had its world premiere at the Seville European Film Festival in 2016 and its international premiere at Visions du Réel in Nyon in 2017. It also screened at Crossing Europe, L'Alternativa in Barcelona, Temporada Alta in Girona, and Cinespaña. The full list of official selections appears in the festival section below.
The Substance (2016) is available to stream on GuideDoc, the documentary platform dedicated to independent and artistic non-fiction cinema. GuideDoc offers the film as part of its art documentary collection, available to watch online directly from this page.
Viewers drawn to The Substance may also enjoy other art and observational documentaries on GuideDoc. Parallel and Traces of the Soul both explore identity and place through a contemplative lens. Automatic on the Road and I Am Irani offer further meditations on culture, landscape, and belonging.
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