Catalan Focus

Sometimes the invisible things that surround us invisibly become more powerful than what is visible. Those elements that emanate from nature, from the earth or that are carried along by the wind can generate sensations and even memories of presences, of past times, of scents, emotions... that we might not see, but we certainly feel. In this film I have wanted to investigate our great capacity to feel what we cannot capture through our eyes, but is only visible through our other senses. Alba (Alba Arias, 13 years old) holds a pure and intuitive sensibility, as well as an eager and curious look. She approaches the world that surrounds her, looking for what she does not understand and is not revealed in an evident way. This search also happens in a very special place, the green and isolated mountains of O Courel, a mountainous region in the interior of Galicia (Spain). Its people coexist with the direct assault of nature, the harsh winter, depopulation and oblivion. However, they also bear a powerful weapon: their conviction that death is not the end but a transition. This way of understanding life and death as intertwined elements in space and time, fascinated me from the first moment that I understood that the reality of O Courel was also more hidden than visible. O Courel is an iceberg, as the local poet Uxío Novoneyra used to say. The cinematic challenge of revealing something that is hidden but fights to remain present, seemed to me a necessary process to reclaim and regain the power of our senses.