Ciutat Morta ([siwˈtat ˈmɔr.tə], "Dead City") is a 2013 Catalan documentary about the 4F case, directed by Xavier Artigas and Xapo Ortega.

Ciutat Morta was produced with volunteer labour by the directors after crowdfunding 4,700 euros, with La Directa staff pursuing the investigation.

Three Latin American men holding Spanish passports (Alex Cisternas, Rodrigo Lanza and Juan Pintos) were immediately arrested on the street and allegedly mistreated at the police station.

It is noted that in 2011 two of the arresting policemen were convicted of torturing a young Latin American student who was the son of a diplomat and in a fragment later cut from the film by order of the court before it was shown on Catalan television, it is alleged that the Guàrdia Urbana chief of information told falsehoods about what happened that night.

[1][2] By following the events of the 4F case, the film argues that the convicted people were not responsible for the police officer getting injured, since he was hit by a flowerpot thrown from a roof and they were all on the street (Heras and Pestana were not even near the building in question).

Two of the three arrested men (Rodrigo Lanza and Juan Pintos) give oral testimony alleging they were subject to racist abuse and beatings at the police station.

[1] The film argues that the convicted people were victims of prejudice, being insulted as "sudacas di mierda" for being Spanish of Latin American ancestry, being judged on their alternative looks and their hairstyles (Lanza having dreadlocks, Heras having a Cyndi Lauper style haircut) and being regarded as worthless for being squatters and gothic punks.

[1][3] Ciutat Morta focuses on human rights abuses in the 4F case and broadens the theme to discuss police violence, gentrification and neoliberal discourses in Barcelona.

The directors Xavier Artigas and Xapo Ortega had been inspired by the success of a documentary called Perdre un ull in Catalan, Perder un ojo in Spanish or To lose an eye in English, which received 250,000 views online in 48 hours and created publicity around the issue of people being blinded by police using rubber bullets to control crowds.

The following month, Xavier Artigas and Xapo Ortega met at the occupied Plaça de Catalunya at the beginning of the 15M movement and discussed making a short film in tribute to Heras.

[3] Mayor Jordi Hereu, the city's head of security, representatives of the Guàrdia Urbana and the family of the injured policeman were invited to participate, but they all declined.

[2] After months of negotiations and following the intervention of a politician from the Popular Unity Candidacy who accused TV3 of lying about its reasons not to show the film, the documentary was screened on TV3 in January 2015 and the film-makers received 3,000 euros.

[14] The film was shown on Channel 33 with five minutes of footage removed by order of a Barcelona court, after a case brought by Víctor Gibanel, the ex-head of information at the Guàrdia Urbana.

[4] La Crítica lauded the film's passion and importance whilst criticising both its length and its failure to present all sides of the story (although it also conceded that no representative of the police had agreed to participate).

[24] In 2017, El País noted that the release of Ciutat Morta and the resulting controversy had not led to the case being reopened or any of the convictions being overturned.

It also commented that the film had shone a spotlight on police violence and recalled that Ada Colau had organised her 2015 campaign to be mayor with a friend of Patricia Heras.

[8] When Lanza was convicted in 2017 after the death of a man in Zaragoza and subsequently had his sentence increased, a political controversy split the Barcelona city council.