In the arid Canary Islands of the 15th century, Fátima serves the Marquis, who controls La Graciosa’s only source of drinking water. But when the well runs dry and the village begins to rebel, she must embark on a journey in search of collective survival.

“We began to imagine this story in Samuel’s family home, perched atop the cliff that appears in the film, on the island of Lanzarote. From this hostile place, where the family has lived for as long as anyone can remember, one can see the small island of La Graciosa, where Fátima, the Marquis, and the rest of the village live. This island dialectic led us to imagine the history of the conquest of these islands and to explore how systems of power emerge from scarcity and fear, devastating both the land and the people who inhabit it. But also how, in the midst of deprivation, acts of solidarity and rebellion with an emancipatory potential can emerge.

We are living through a ruined present, in which we forget that the impulse to help one another is as fundamental to human beings as the desire for power. Throughout history, hierarchies have always sought to suppress this collective instinct, replacing cooperation with competition. Yet this instinct persists, giving rise to new ways of inhabiting the world.

In a forgotten corner of our colonial history—where Greek mythology once placed Paradise—we evoke a world of drought and conquest, where the fates of enslaved people, settlers, and survivors converged in the violent birth of a new social order that continues to shape our present.”

Helena Girón and Samuel Delgado