Fire Will Come

The Galician hills of Spain star in Óliver Laxe's film about a man who returns to his home in the forest he once burned down.

After serving two years in prison for arson, Amador (Amador Arias) returns to his serene mountainside village in the Galicia region of Spain. For the most part, his wilfully solitary life resumes, bar for his ageing mother and the cows she tends. Amador's occasional interactions with the villagers are fleeting, but under the surface of their pleasantries, quiet tensions simmer away.

Shot on 16mm film, Fire Will Come stars two actors in their first film roles, but it is the gloriously filmed Galician forest that should take top billing. Óliver Laxe's 2019 work is an exercise in hushed restraint but not without its creative risk-taking. The payoff is real, though. The film screened in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes in 2019, where it received the Jury Prize.

In 2025, Óliver Laxe returns to Cannes with his new feature Sirat, which will screen in competition.