With the summer winding down, we’re pleased to spotlight Elena López Riera’s docu-fable El Agua. Filmed in Riera’s hometown of Orihuela in southern Spain, this singular coming-of-age film explores the relationship between the town’s women and the floods that affect the region every decade. Premiering at Cannes’ Quinzaine des Cinéastes in 2022, El Agua was Riera’s feature-length debut, marking a major step in a career preceded by perceptive short documentaries and followed up with the doc Las novias del sur, winner of both the Queer Palm at Cannes and Best Documentary Short Award at the César Awards last year.

El Agua swirls around Ana, a wayward teen deadset on skipping town in hopes of finding a more eventful life elsewhere. She spends most of her summer days swimming and sunbathing with friends, a set of leisurely activities that reflect Riera’s own teenage recreation, as well as her belief that “having fun is revolutionary” because “so many people want you to be frightened.” But, for all her ambition to escape Orihuela, Ana feels tied down to the town’s mysterious rivers, which her elders recall as a treacherous body of water known for swallowing up young women.

“I shot the film in the same town where I was raised and I was surrounded by these stories and this mythology that tried to explain why the river flowed every 10 years. It’s mostly my grandma and all the women that raised me who transmitted this mythology to me, which is great on one hand and on the other hand, it’s kind of heavy to carry on… I tried to do a fairy tale movie about these memories and these women I was raised by.” ELENA LÓPEZ RIERA.

 

In addition to shooting in her hometown, Riera also cast most of the film’s actors with local townsfolk. She first came across Luna Pamiés, who plays Ana, drinking in the street with her friends. After agreeing to star in her film, she then disappeared for a year. Riera recalls that when she finally saw Luna again, she “caught her and told her, ‘You’re going to never leave.’”

Elena López Riera is a Spanish visual artist and filmmaker. After growing up and studying in Spain, she moved to Switzerland, where she teaches cinema and comparative literature at Geneva University. Her short films have screened at Cannes’ Quinzane des Cineastes, Locarno Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center, and the Museum of Modern Art, among several other renowned institutions. Her latest film, Las novias del sur, explores the relationship between married women and sex.

Text written by Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer. Special thanks to Elena López Riera, Alina Film, Elle Driver, Films du Losange, and Rafael Molés Vilar.