The Barcelona neighbourhood of Sants, which stretches out around the train station of the same name and where San Sebastián-born filmmaker Mikel Gurrea lives, is the setting for his second film, Saints, and also lends it its original title. The movie is competing for the Golden Shell at the 74th San Sebastián International Film Festival, the very same event where, four years ago, he presented his invigorating debut feature, Suro, toplined, like the film at hand, by Victoria Luengo (a popular face in Spanish cinema this year, thanks to Bitter Christmas and The Beloved).

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Whereas in his feature debut, natural scenery and sunlight shaped the story, here, it's darkness and the urban fabric that constitute the fundamental components of Saints, a title loaded with a double (or even triple) meaning that follows Lali (Luengo), a wandering, erratic soul who returns home after a call from her mother, Gloria (Ariadna Gil), who is gravely ill and in need of help.

Once back home, the fraught relationship they have always had spirals into conflict, and as the daughter gets drawn into a gang that steals sacred sculptures from churches and convents, she becomes fascinated by its leader, Rosario (a formidable Eulalia Ramón), a former nun who knows the underbelly of petty dealing inside out - as well as the churches and cemeteries that could be potential treasure troves. She also promises the young woman help with the care that her mother requires.

With this simple, pared-back premise (co-written with Fran Kosterlitz), Gurrea has fashioned a story about women supporting one another and a heist movie steeped in the darkness of the night, populated by surly, rough, abrasive and taciturn characters who cling to anything they can to keep on scraping by, whether through religious faith or its flipside, crime.

But the shadows that envelop his actresses ultimately end up eclipsing the emotional impact of the film. It cries out for more light as the story unfolds, so that its characters will not come across as almost ghostlike to viewers who can never quite make sense of their ambiguous, confusing actions. And although it offers moments of haunting beauty (that opening sequence of asparagus being picked in a field at night by torchlight, or those religious statues floating in the sea), a sinister portrayal of Barcelona that could scare off tourists (heightened by the spontaneity of the non-professional actors recruited from the Sants neighbourhood who appear in the movie) and explores weighty themes such as family responsibility, faith, terminal illness and caregiving, these are merely whispered, lacking the energy they need to really breathe.

Saints is a Spanish-Italian production by Nocturna Pictures, co-produced with Lastor Media, Deliris Films and Kino Produzioni. Its international sales are handled by German outfit M-Appeal.