Elena López Riera’s debut feature El Agua is a mystical blend of fiction and documentary-style filmmaking. Set in Orihuela, a small Spanish town outside of Madrid, the film follows 17-year-old Ana (Luna Pamiés), who comes from a long line of “cursed” women. Her mother, Isabella (Barbara Lennie), and grandmother, Angela (Nieve de Medina), have lived in Orihuela all of their lives. Now that school is complete, Ana has become increasingly fearful that she, too, will be stuck in the village forever. Though she has a close-knit group of girlfriends, there is little more to do in Orihuela than smoke, party, race pigeons, drink and find work picking fruit in the citrus groves.
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