Aro berria

With ecstatic sequences reminiscent of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, this complex portrait of new-age commune life is a striking feature debut.

It’s 1978, and Spanish society is struggling to find a post-dictatorship identity in the wake of Franco’s death. A host of activist workers from a Basque factory, disillusioned by the seeming inevitability of capitalism, attempt a complete rebellion, setting out to join a commune in rural Navarre. Eme (played by a magnetic Maite Mugerza Ronse) wants to believe that Arco Iris offers a new way of living, but she soon learns it’s just as political as a picket line: the commune is riddled with personality clashes and ideological disagreements, and its sexual practices are underpinned by patriarchal power imbalances. Despite what the thousands of pilgrims who flock to its large-scale spiritual rituals might think, this rainbow family isn’t particularly harmonious.

Irati Gorostidi Agirretxe has been building to this debut feature through her short films, chronicling life within an intentional community in both documentary (2021’s San Simón 62) and fiction (2023’s Contadores). The connection is personal: Gorostidi Agirretxe’s own parents lived in a new-age commune before she was born. Boasting a wryly comic cameo from the charismatic Oliver Laxe (director of MIFF 2025 stand-out Sirāt) as a seedy tantric sex guru, her debut feature is a slippery film sitting at the intersection of sincerity and scepticism. Evoking both the daily routines of Direct Action (MIFF 2024) and the ecstatic rituals of The Testament of Ann Lee, Aro berria introduces a vital new voice in Basque cinema.

Content: Melbourne International Film Festival