What nineteenth-century nationalists wanted was a 'space' for each 'race', a territorializing of each social identity. What they have got instead is a chain of cosmopolitan cities and an increasing proliferation of subnational and transnational identities that cannot easily be contained in the nation-state system. (Cohen 1997) This essay considers the transnational intercultural dimensions of two European co-productions set in Barcelona -Todo sobre mi madre (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999) and L'Auberge espagnole (Cédric Klapisch, 2002) -in terms of how these films reflect non-traditional notions of European, Spanish and Catalan identities. It investigates how Barcelona's African communities are represented cinematically, and how these representations challenge conventional notions of what it means to be Catalan, Spanish or European. In Todo sobre mi madre, through its themes, soundtrack and carefully composed background, Almodóvar emphasizes the multicultural fabric of contemporary Barcelona by drawing explicit attention to African Spaniards and African culture. In L'Auberge espagnole, Klapisch foregrounds within the film an explicit discussion about the linguistic and cultural underpinnings of the national, subnational and transnational identities that comprise modern-day Spain. Both films exploit the real space of Barcelona as a symbolic setting that reflects their directors' pluralist, multicultural, multipolar, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual visions of European social reality. Recent events in Madrid, London, Paris and Amsterdam have brought renewed attention to how the cultural and ethnic face of Europe continues to evolve, sometimes with violent consequences. The train bombings in Madrid on 11 March 2004 represent a dramatic example of how a national tragedy has had transnational implications. Of the 191 victims of the attack, forty-three people were from countries outside Spain. Thirteen of the dead were from Romania, six from Ecuador, four from Peru, three each from Bulgaria and Morocco, two each from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras. Others came from Chile, Cuba, Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, France, Philippines, Poland and Ukraine. The trains loaded with explosives originated in Alcalá de Henares, which is now home to sizeable Latin American and Eastern European communities made up of predominantly blue collar workers and day labourers who commute to Madrid. The fact that nearly twenty-five per cent of the victims were not of traditional Spanish descent affirms the importance of Spain's growing immigrant populations to its changing national identity.A glance through any regional or national newspaper today will reveal a front-page story or editorial essay on how immigration and globalization are impacting Spanish