Premiering at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, this latest from Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen mixes to admirable effect elements of such disparate genres as melodrama, police procedurals, and revenge thrillers to create a tense drama of internecine conflict between neighbours in the beautiful Galician countryside. Based on actual events, it sees French couple Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs) living a bucolic existence, farming and marketing their produce. Tensions with neighbours Xan (Luis Zahera, superb) and his brother spring from Antoine’s refusal of a financial offer from a wind turbine company that Xan believes would have given his family the chance to escape their backbreaking pastoral existence for a better and easier life. As these tensions escalate past breaking point, the comparative strength of the male and female characters is just one fascinating element of an intensely gripping film.

Notes by Kevin Coyne