EL CIELO GIRA

Mercedes Álvarez was three years old when, in the late Sixties, her parents left La Aldea, a village in the barren Northern Spanish Soria region. She was the last child born in La Aldea. Now only fourteen people live there, a last dying generation. Soon this village, like so many other rural communities all over the world, will be deserted and will probably disappear from the map. Álvarez returns for the first time to her ancestral home and makes a stunning film about memory and the terrifying passing of time. In Álvarez painterly eye for the elements and the seasons, one can recognise similarities with the work of Victor Erice. And then there is the painter Pello Azketa, who is slowly going blind, and will soon not be able to work any more. For him, things are starting to disappear. He walks through the village, feels things and starts one more painting. (Gerwin Tamsma)