Reporter and director of the Barcelona African Film Festival-Festival Wallay!
Gemma Parellada is the longest-serving Spanish correspondent in sub-Saharan Africa, from where she has narrated both major historical events and small everyday stories. Specializing in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she has covered the continent’s bloodiest wars, but also follows and investigates social, political and cultural movements in a career that has won her, among others, the Miguel Gil and Joan Gomis Prizes for Journalism. Concerned about the “number of falsehoods” that continue to distort Africa’s imaginary, she is highly critical of the sexist and racist narratives that continue to fuel it.
As well as being a correspondent for Catalunya Radio and El País, she works with various national and international media (including CNN) and forms part of the Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR). In 2018, she co-founded Festival Wallay!, a project that sets out to use the field of culture as a place to enhance contact with the narratives coming out of Africa.
Born in Barcelona in 1982 and resident in Africa for over 15 years, she divides her time between Ivory Coast and South Africa, despite moving constantly around the continent.
