Short Films

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Documentary Time

THE UNDERGROWTH
LA HOJARASCA

• Director: Macu Machín
• SPAIN / 2024 / DCP / Colour / 72’ / Spanish; Turkish, English s.t.

• Screenplay: Macu Machín
• Director of Photography: José Alayón, Zhana Yordanova
• Editing: Emma Tusell, Ariadna Ribas, Manuel Muñoz Rivas
• Music: Jonay Armas
• Cast: Carmen Machín, Elsa Machín, Maura Pérez
• Producer: José Alayón, José Miguel Viña, Jamie Weiss, Jairo López
• Production Co.: El Viaje Films
• World Sales: splitscreen

Do family ties ever fade, even when you are as old as the land that you dwell upon, and do old resentments ever fade, ever eroded by fierce winds and endless earthquakes? What keeps us apart or what keeps us together despite ghosts? After 20 years, Elsa and her younger sister, Maura, return to the house where they were raised. Carmen, the third sister, lives there alone and maintains the family’s meagre estates in Gran Canaria. Maura’s degenerative disease continues unabated, while Elsa and Carmen try to finally settle the distribution of their parents’ inheritance. Between almond harvests and never-ending arguments, old conflicts surface and seem to awaken subtle but fierce, long-dormant volcanoes. In her debut film which premiered at the Berlinale in February, director Macu Machín centres on the unique universe of her own family (hard women like the bark of trees,) the lands they inhabit, their roots, their memories.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.