Barcelona, 1980s: in a tough urban neighbourhood inhabited by survivors and ruled by ex-legionnaires Gandhi, Fontán and Andrade - who are fighting a war for control of the streets - Nen and his friends Palito, Topo and Tostao dream of making it big in the world of rumba. But Nen discovers why his father, El Guacho - of whom all Nen has left is the memory of his brilliance as a rumba singer - disappeared many years earlier. He learns how the relationship between his mother, Chata, and Ghandi, leader of the neighbourhood, was connected to his father's disappearance, and so Nen is forced to balance his own desire for vengeance with his longing to triumph.
Acting
Juan Diego's Gandhi simmers with terrifying paternal menace.
Score
Rumba soundtrack weaponizes joy against relentless bleakness.
Production
Barcelona's marginalized barrios recreated with documentary texture.
Director
Mireia Ros
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Rumba catalana was exploding in 1980s Barcelona precisely in these marginalized neighborhoods, making the soundtrack historically authentic protest music.
Mireia Ros directed only two features; this was her ambitious sophomore attempt to merge social realism with operatic melodrama, dividing critics who wanted either pure grit or pure camp.
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