There is a moment in José Luis Guerín's film Stories from the Good ValleyIn this film, Barcelona appears on the horizon as a distant promise, or perhaps as a threat. From Vallbona, the city's silhouette seems like something happening elsewhere, in another time. And yet, you are there, within it, treading on land still irrigated by the Comtal irrigation canal as it has for centuries, amidst orchards tended with a patience and tenacity that the fast-paced city has forgotten how to practice. It's a neighborhood that's difficult to reach. This isn't a metaphor: it's truly difficult to get there, physically, amidst trains and highways that cut through it without stopping. And perhaps that's why it has preserved something that the rest of the city has been losing without realizing it. In fact, an earlier film, Little IndianMarc Recha's film already introduced us to a little-known space that maintains its unique personality in an overflowing metropolis.

"What should a film about Vallbona show?" asks José Luis Guerin, off-screen, to the inhabitants of this neighborhood in the far north of Barcelona, ​​during the audition. in situ which the team organizesStories from the Good ValleyThe filmmaker introduces at the beginning of his new film excerpts from the casting process for this project, which stems from First impressions (2023), a commissioned piece for the occasion ofexposure An unknown city shrouded in fog at the MACBA. Guerin thus positions himself as a director willing to shoot an open film (a "work in progress", according to the credits), but not merely observational; rather, it is constructed from the reality presented to the camera.

Twenty-four years afterUnder construction, one of the most important and influential films of Catalan cinema of this century, José Luis Guerin (Barcelona, ​​1960) returns to film the urban and social transformations of the city where he was born and no longer lives (he moved to France last decade). He shows them in the documentary Stories from the Good Valley, which is nominated for the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The filmmaker observes the Barcelona neighborhood of Vallbona, paying attention to what makes it unique: its isolation from the city (due to the highway and the C-17), the survival of an agricultural culture, and, above all, its residents, whose diversity is evident in the dozen languages speakable in the film: Arabic, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Hindi. He films their celebrations and almost immerses himself in the Rec Comtal to show the beauty and dignity of a neighborhood and its people in his best film since, precisely, Under construction.