In a Valencian village during the post-war period, Ana tries to get by with her family – the civil war has left a deep wound in all of them, especially in her brother-in-law, Antonio.
Ana tries to heal that wound using stews, secrets and silences, but when Isabel, newly married to Antonio, arrives in the family, Ana’s attention and care will be of little or no use: sacrifice does not always come with a reward.
Celia Rico is a Spanish screenwriter and film director. She studied Literary Theory, Comparative Literature and Film. Her short film Luisa no está en casa (Luisa is not at home) was screened at the 2012 La Biennale di Venezia.
In 2018, she premiered her debut feature film, Viaje al cuarto de una madre (Journey to a Mother’s Room), at the San Sebastián Film Festival, where it received a Special Mention from the Jury (New Directors) and the Youth Award.
The film won Best Screenplay at the Gaudí Awards and was nominated for the Goya Awards and the Platino Awards. She created the animated children’s series Mironins and published the illustrated book Celia se aburre (Celia is bored) (Bookino Award 2017).
Her second feature film, Los pequeños amores (Little Loves), premiered at the Málaga Film Festival (2024), where it won the Special Jury Prize and the Best Supporting Actress Award.
In 2025, also at the Malaga Film Festival, she premiered her third feature film, La buena letra (The Good Manners), an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Rafael Chirbes, which received a special mention in directing and was recently nominated for the Goya and Gaudí Awards (2026) in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay.
Santiago Fouz Hernández is a Professor of Iberian Studies and Film at Durham University. He is the author of The Films of Bigas Luna (Manchester University Press, 2025), Cuerpos de Cine (Ed Bellaterra, 2013), co-author of Live Flesh. The Male Body in Contemporary Spanish Cinema (I B Tauris, 2007) and editor of, among others, Spanish Erotic Cinema (Edinburgh UP, 2017).
Since 2020, he has produced and co-hosted the Bigas Luna podcast (in Spanish), and since 2015, he has programmed, with Betty Bigas, The Bigas Luna Tribute, an international touring retrospective.