The ‘Zonazine’ section of the Festival de Málaga continues to screen the most independent and daring films of this year’s festival, and on the fourth day of the festival it was the turn of La hojarasca, an intimate drama directed by the Canary Islander Macu Machín.

The film tells the story of Elsa and her younger sister Maura, when they return to the house where they were born after more than 20 years. Carmen, her other sister, who maintains the family’s precarious property, lives there alone. Maura’s degenerative illness continues to progress, while Elsa tries to resolve with Carmen the distribution of their parents’ inheritance. Between almond picking and unfinished arguments, old conflicts surface and seem to awaken the murmur of the volcano.

The press conference held after the screening was attended by the director herself and Jaime Weiss, producer of El Viaje Films. La hojarasca comes from the heart and from living away from the Canary Islands for 20 years, when the first spark to tell this story was lit ', Machín said at the press conference.

The film moves between fiction and documentary, telling an intimate family story, in which the three main actresses are playing the real life experiences of three sisters and the director is their daughter and niece. 'Being so involved from a personal point of view, the bond that was created during the filming was incredibly intimate. In addition to the actresses, who are my family, the rest of the film crew became an extended family', said the director.

Regarding the writing process, the filmmaker explains that she wrote a script because filming support requires it, but she was clear that she didn’t want to replicate it, she simply used it as a guide: 'In fact, the final catharsis of the film was going to be a big storm, but at the time of shooting, the La Palma volcano erupted and we decided to record it as a substitute for the storm. The script was a living document that was modified according to the interpretation of the actresses and the external elements', concludes Machín.

La hojarasca had its world premiere in the ‘Forum’ section of the Berlinale last February. After its screening at the Festival de Málaga, it is expected to be distributed in cinemas throughout 2024.

Macu Machín was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. She has a long career as a short filmmaker and in her evolution as a director she has moved from observational cinema with Geometría de invierno to found footage with Quemar las naves, always with a concern for capturing the real and the transcendent at the same time, as in El mar inmóvil. With production from El Viaje Films, she is now tackling La hojarasca, her first feature film centred on the unique universe of her own family.