We start the 6th season of Visions Documentals with a documentary about one of the most unique characters in our recent history: Alexandre Deulofeu. In the mid-1940s, this pharmacist from Emporda, a friend of Pujols and Dalí, who considered him one of the local geniuses, formulated a surprising theory: «The mathematics of history», stating that civilizations and empires go through cycles equivalent to those of living beings and that through the knowledge of these cycles, wars would be avoided and the processes would be peaceful.
After the Civil War, Deulofeu leaves Figueres and goes into exile in Franca. It is there that he writes «The mathematics of history» and where he makes his predictions about the future clear. Deulofeu has sometimes been called the Catalan Nostradamus, but the comparison doesn’t do him justice because Deulofeu is not a soothsayer nor does he subscribe to magical thinking. On the contrary, his method claims to be scientific, based on mathematics, history and biology. The most surprising thing of all, however, is that Deulofeu’s predictions in these 70 years have been fulfilled. In the 1960s «The mathematics of history» reached the American Pentagon itself because it predicted that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall would be at the end of the 20th century. Two events that have occurred even though in the 40s when Deulofeu predicted it they seemed almost impossible.
But there is still one more thing that makes «The mathematics of history» more topical than ever: what it says about Spain. Deulofeu predicts the dismemberment of Spain by 2020. Needless to say, Deulofeu’s predictions have been welcomed with great interest by the sovereignist party. Will these predictions also be fulfilled? This and other topics were discussed after the screening, both with the director and the technical team, and with the historian and grandson of Alexandre Deulofeu, Juli Gutiérrez Deulofeu, who is the guiding thread of this documentary made with affection, but also with critical distance and above all with a sense of humor. We also had the presence of some of the interviewees such as Patricia Gabancho, among others.
Data sheet
Title: Alexandre Deulofeu, the historian of the future
Director: Ángel Leiro
Production: Visiona TV and TV3
Executive production: Ferran Cera
Idea and coordination: David de Montserrat
TVC executive production: Jordi Ambròs
Screenplay: Francesc Orteu
Production director: Carles Bonmatí
Director of photography: Mimmo Pizzigallo
Year: 2016
Length: 53′ 33»