The Olive Tree
Synopsis
As a small child, Anna watches in horror as her family sell her grandfather's favourite 1000-year-old olive tree to help pay for a tourist restaurant.
Wind forward a dozen years and her grandfather has fallen into depression and dementia; does he miss his tree?
Anna discovers the tree has been bought by a Dusseldorf energy company as a symbol of its green policies; can she get it back?
What follows is her crazy mission, with a couple of friends, to go to Dusseldorf to rescue the tree, involving big business and the German environmental movement along the way.
The film is directed by Icíar Bollaín (we had her 'Even the Rain' here in 2012 and 'Take My Eyes' at the 2005 Festival) and written by her partner, multi-award winning Paul Laverty, Ken Loach's collaborator ('I, Daniel Blake', 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley'). Anna Castillo, who plays Anna, gets good reviews all round too, so this should be a treat for us all.
Wind forward a dozen years and her grandfather has fallen into depression and dementia; does he miss his tree?
Anna discovers the tree has been bought by a Dusseldorf energy company as a symbol of its green policies; can she get it back?
What follows is her crazy mission, with a couple of friends, to go to Dusseldorf to rescue the tree, involving big business and the German environmental movement along the way.
The film is directed by Icíar Bollaín (we had her 'Even the Rain' here in 2012 and 'Take My Eyes' at the 2005 Festival) and written by her partner, multi-award winning Paul Laverty, Ken Loach's collaborator ('I, Daniel Blake', 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley'). Anna Castillo, who plays Anna, gets good reviews all round too, so this should be a treat for us all.
Critics
“This is a small, soulful film that has two stars: the feisty Spanish actress Anna Castillo and a vast, gnarled, thousand-year old olive tree”
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