La Panadella

La Panadella, an emblematic Catalonian road town in stasis, awaits the arrival of uncertain visitors.

As its inhabitants move through their monotonous routines, a mysterious signal begins to pulse through space.

Documentary short film. Spain/Costa Rica, 2023.

17 min, color.

CREW

Direction: Joel Jimenez

Production company: ESCAC Films

Production: Ferran Giol

Script: Joel Jimenez and Alicia Moncholi

Cinematography: Martin Avila and Joel Jimenez

Production design: Eva Prieto

Sound design: Zoe Galan

Sound mixing: Marti Albert

Editing: Sonia Florez

Color grading: Chisco Valdes

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

La Panadella exists in a state of temporal and geographical isolation. It acts, metaphorically, as an island in which the passage of time is manifested in traces, cycles, and silences.

It’s a place where diverse historical narratives and memories coexist, a location marked by its transitory nature, caught in a limbo between existence and oblivion.

This small town in the Anoia region of Catalonia bears the scars of a life that seems to have been put on hold.
It embodies the decline of rural Spain, places where its inhabitants are caught in the undertow of a forgotten era and struggle to find meaning in a territory marked by absence and longing.

The film registers the rhythms of the landscape, exploring its psychological dimension and hoping to unveil the hidden layers of its atmosphere where reality and imagination intertwine.