The Presence of the Dead

Three young friends of Moroccan origin travel on a lost island, sing, dance, and take us into the shelter of an uninhabited lighthouse. They discover this unknown land like the explorers in a tale of adventures. Following them around in this strange place, Julieta Juncadella carries us away, like a wave, in the movement of a fantasy film. – Elena López Riera

After a party, Agos and Ren find themselves in a strange place where they remember to have been before… A failed world bursting with dependences and doors leading to the same yet different place.

Alba, 11 years old, passes her days in silence. She loves little animals. She has learned to cope with her mother's illness, helping her to use the bathroom. Alba plays silently so that her mother can rest during the day. One night Alba's mother gets worse, and has to be taken to the hospital. With no one else to take care of her, Alba is sent to live with her father, who she hasn't seen since she was three years old. Living with her father is almost unbearable. Embarrassment, her first kiss, visits to mother in the hospital, Edgar's tender efforts to get close to her, and bullying at school; these are some of the experiences that pave Alba's journey to puberty and to self-acceptance.

On 16 April 2016 a severe earthquake hit coastal Ecuador. José María Avilés’ first longer film is based on this national disaster, but at great distance from the collapsed buildings and buried loved ones. He shows how an unexpected event can suddenly modify all the rules of the game, even in the remote town of Angamarca – the location of the film – where the effects of the quake arrive as distant echoes of hostility in the natural environment.

Atahualpa works on the construction of a road that will cross the Llanganates Mountain Range, where it is said that the treasure of Inca Atahualpa was hidden in 1533. One night, Atahualpa is the guide of an expedition that goes in search of the treasure at the beginning of the 20th century.

The film portrays a night shift of the last fishing community that uses the Art of Xávega, a traditional type of fishing that has barely evolved over the centuries, disappeared on the Spanish coast and in process of extinction in Portugal. At the same time, under the huge cliff and a few meters from the sea, other bodies roam the terrain in search of occasional sexual encounters.

African fashion model Alexandra Cartier meets Jorge Luis Borges in a visionary hallucination. What does the famous Argentine modernist writer have to say about our contemporary ecological and pandemic problems?

Julia and Diego spend a weekend taking care of Diego’s nephew, in a house far from the city. Everything goes on normally until Julia’s visit to the hospital changes completely their relation.