Good Valley Stories

On the outskirts of Barcelona, Vallbona forms an enclave wedged between the railway line, the river and the road. On this wasteland with a long agrarian past, the urban development plan was abandoned at the time of the Civil War, and informal houses sprang up, shaping a charmingly anarchic suburb. The shared gardens and swimmable riverbanks of this urban utopia hold a thousand memories of the generations who built their lives there. Filmed over two seasons and structured like a Western, Histoire de la bonne vallée sees winter arrive as developers seize this collective space of freedom – in which joy once flourished – where new laws will now apply. The way José Luis Guérin films a community of circumstance recalls John Ford’s cinema, to which he paid tribute in Innisfree in 1990. By bringing gentrification, the Gens du Sud, as they are referred to in the opening titles, turn this land into a world under deconstruction.

Raphaëlle Pireyre