Alcarràs

There was a time when words of honour meant something. Quimet Solé’s family has grown peaches in Alcarràs, Catalonia, ever since they were gifted land by the rich Pinyol family for saving their lives during the Spanish Civil War. But that was then, without paperwork. Now, the Pinyol heir wants to evict the Solés and bulldoze their trees to make way for a lucrative solar farm. Following her impressive 2017 debut feature Summer 1993, Simón casts a compassionate eye over Quimet’s extended family as the final harvest approaches. Feeling bitter and helpless, Quimet can’t see a future. Sturdy wife Dolors holds things together. Teenagers Roger and Mariona become rebellious while grandmothers reminisce about simpler times. And all the while, young daughter Iris and twin cousins Pau and Pere fill the air with laughter and joy as they play games and invent worlds of their own on a patch of earth that has sustained their families for generations. Told against the backdrop of independent farmers being squeezed out by corporate interests and government failures, this affecting study of an endangered way of life is faultlessly performed by a non-professional cast of local community members.