Elena López Riera

I was born in Orihuela, a town in the Spanish Levant divided by the Segura, one of Europe's most polluted rivers. I grew up with my mother, my grandmother, and my aunts, surrounded by women that used to tell all kinds of stories to take the ease off the long afternoons of asphyxiating heat. These stories almost always had a true origin (based on events, secrets whispered between neighbours, or family stories), but changed with each new version until some of them became truly fantastic tales. This is surely why I decided, one day, to make films. It was my way of participating in this popular, collective tale that does not distinguish between history and poetry.