La parra

Ferrol is a town on the Atlantic coast of Galicia. (In)famously the hometown of Francisco Franco, what used to be the jewel in the crown of the Spanish navy industry is now a place with few resources and “nothing to do”, as a couple of giggling teenagers state in a TV interview. Damián left Ferrol more than 20 years ago, but is forced to return when he learns that his father has passed away. Once there, the people around him begin to mistake him for someone else, someone whose destiny is sealed. LA PARRA, Alberto Gracia’s third feature, is an unapologetically hallucinatory trip to a distressed town where characters of different generations live precariously, abandoned by the state and with little hope for the future. Damián’s surreal ordeal seems to go totally unnoticed in a city facing daily doom. Gracia’s unrivalled capacity to evoke atmosphere through music and lighting is further expanded here by the use of TV found footage that makes it even harder to locate the story at a fixed moment in history. Whether set right in the present or in the past, however, LA PARRA is paradigmatic of a cinema that sees the periphery as a space to understand the destiny of an entire continent. (Rebecca De Pas)

In the presence of Alberto Gracia, Javier Tasio and Beli Martínez. 

With the kind support of Acción Cultural Española.

Alberto Gracia: MICROFUGAS (2008, K), O QUINTO EVANXEO DE GASPAR HAUSER (2013), LA ESTRELLA ERRANTE (2018), LET’S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE (2021, K), THE RIM (2023, K)