La hojarasca (The Undergrowth)

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. 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 a long dormant volcano.

Macu Machín (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) has an extensive career as director of short films. In her evolution as a filmmaker, she has moved from observational cinema (‘Geometría de invierno’) to found footage (‘Quemar las naves’), with a consistent desire to, simultaneously, capture the real and the transcendent (‘El mar inmóvil’). Now collaborating with El Viaje Films, she takes on ‘La hojarasca’, her first feature film, centered on the unique universe of her own family and the lands they inhabit.