A familiar presence on the film festival circuit, Alberto Morais’s previous feature film, The Mother [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Alberto Morais
scheda film], premiered at the Seminci in Valladolid, following its development at the Cinéfondation workshop in Cannes. His first feature film, The Waves [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], won both Best Film and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Moscow Film Festival. Also director of the documentary Un lugar en el cine, which marked his directorial debut in 2007, he is now screening his fifth film, La terra negra, at the 40th edition of Valencia’s Cinema Jove film festival (in the Premiere section). The film had its world premiere in the official section of the Málaga Film Festival.

As in his previous works, Morais’ cinema shuns convention like the plague. Nothing here adheres to the usual tropes of traditional film narrative—neither the (restrained) performances, nor the (sparse) camera movement, nor the script, written by the Valladolid-born filmmaker, who grew up in Valencia, alongside Samuel del Amor.

The film introduces siblings María and Ángel (played by Laia Marull, in her third collaboration with Morais, and Andrés Gertrúdix), who run a mill in a dusty village. She has returned to the town after studying and working abroad, without much success.  He bears the burden of being seen as useless and inept. Their lives take a turn with the arrival of Miquel (Sergi López), an ex-convict viewed with suspicion by the rest of the village when he begins working with the protagonists.

Divided into two parts (entitled Dies Irae and Via Crucis), the film’s opening credits appear over an image of the painting Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) by Extremadura painter Francisco de Zurbarán, a symbol of Christian sacrifice. La terra negra is a harsh and austere film, like sandpaper, that, through religious iconography, explores a kind of mystical, humanistic neorealism with certain supernatural elements. Yet it does so using minimal means and no special effects.

It unfolds in a series of tense afternoons filled with anger, where not a single smile is cracked. They discuss social conflict and mistrust of strangers/foreigners, but, despite its ochre and grey tones, a glimmer of hope shines through—not only in its final scene, but also in those sensitive moments of connection shared by the disenfranchised characters experienced by its three protagonists, played by actors who carry the weight of the story within them.

This slow-paced, mystical narrative, halfway between Pasolini's religious cinema and the style of such unconventional directors as Bresson, Dreyer and Kaurismäki, with a static camera that lingers patiently on faces and barren landscapes, drawing out profound truths from them all. A unique experience for those seeking something different, as well as challenging for viewers unaccustomed to more radically auteur cinema.

La terra negra is a Spanish-Panamanian co-production by the companies Olivo Films, Elamedia Estudios, Dexiderius P.A. and Garra Producciones. It will be released in Spanish cinemas on 29 August, distributed by Sideral.