Looking back, Sergi López says he can't believe he's lived the professional life he's had. He's made more than 100 films, mostly in France, but also in Italy, the United Kingdom, and other countries. This summer, he revived his theatrical show. Non solum, which premiered twenty years ago, and has starred Sirado, a film by Óliver Laxe. He's a joke, and an actor through and through with an impressive creative streak.

I will always respect filmmakers who strive to follow an unpopular path. And there is no doubt that Alberto Morais's journey leads him to a lonely place: his is an intractable path in the will to asceticism, which has never been so evident as in The black earth, a film that portrays the interior of the Valencian Country with the telluric mysticism and dramatic aridity with which Bruno Dumont knocked on the doors of cinephilia almost three decades ago. At the center of the story we find Laia Marull (who had previously worked with the director on The waves and The mother) in the role of María, a woman who, shrouded in an aura of failure, returns to her hometown to work with her brother in the family business, an industrial mill. Also joining the cast is Miquel (Sergi López), a man with a troubled past but with a peculiar sensitivity and, also, a supernatural gift for influencing others. The intimacy that develops between them provides the most unexpected and warm moments in a film that, on the other hand, fails to convincingly modulate its most hostile twists, especially with regard to the martyrdom to which it ultimately subjects Marull's character. An imbalance derived from a self-imposed and somewhat affected rigidity that also extends to some of the actors, whom Morais treats as Bressonian models and who at times seem to struggle to avoid following the instinct that would lead them to a more naturalistic register.

When the Cannes Film Festival is over and the accredited journalists make a mental list of the scenes we saw, the ones we won't be able to get out of our heads, surely the one that breaks in half won't be missing from any list. Sirât, the film by the Galician filmmaker Oliver Laxe –produced by a large part of the Catalan team and produced by Pedro Almodóvar's production company, El Deseo– was presented this Thursday in the official competition and will therefore compete for the Palme d'Or. Sirât It is the story of a father (Sergi López) who, along with his young son, searches for the trail of his eldest daughter, who has been missing for months. The trail they follow leads them to a radish which is held in the Moroccan desert and, with a handful of regular participants of these illegal parties, they embark on a new journey in search of another radish where, perhaps, who knows, they might find the girl. It's the small hope that drives them to cross a desert filled with uncertainty and danger.