Surrealism, tramontane wind and wine. An ode to the Empordà that speaks to the senses.
The client wanted to leave behind the classic "people doing wine-tourism activities" and appeal to feelings instead: provocative, artistic, inspired by the Empordà, surrealism and the tramontane wind. A 50–60 second piece to open destination presentations and live on social media too.
The first proposal was a prayer to the Empordà: «I don't pray for you to be kind. I pray for you to be strong», ending with a twist on the Lord's Prayer: «Give us this day our daily wine». We turned it into an ode addressed to the land: emotional but not touristy, with surrealism present but never named. Wine is not the protagonist: it is the result of the Empordà struggle, and the word only appears at the very end.
“From this struggle… vines will grow. From this effort… we will make wine.”
The opening shot is a tribute to Figure at a Window (1925), the painting in which Salvador Dalí portrayed his sister Anna Maria from behind, looking out over the bay from the family house in Cadaqués. We shot it in Cadaqués with the same composition (the young woman from behind, the open window, the sea beyond), but with the curtain blown by the wind: the tramontane enters the painting. Dalí is in the text too. The brief included two lines attributed to him about wine: «Those who know how to taste do not drink too much wine, they enjoy its gentle secrets» and «A true connoisseur does not simply drink: he contemplates, smells, listens and finally savours». That is where the central verse of the ode comes from. And lines like «Scramble our horizons. Tilt our world» bring surrealist imbalance into the landscape.
“Teach us not to drink. But to listen. To question every drop as if it were an answer.”
Every verse of the ode has its own shot. The shooting script records, line by line, the light and colour references, the locations and the shooting resources.
P01Empordà. — The farm woman at the window, inspired by Dalí.
P02My land. — Leaning on the dolmen, looking at the horizon.
P03Make us tough as the Pyrenees.
P04Restless as the Costa Brava. — Barefoot on the beach.
P05Let your wind strip us bare. — The veil at Sant Pere de Rodes.
P06If one day we doubt… — Inside Sant Pere.
P07Scramble our horizons. — Espolla wine cooperative.
P08Questioning every drop as if it were an answer.
P09We accept your character. Your fury.
P10Your cutting light. — Holm oaks in Les Gavarres.
P11And from this struggle… — The grapes and the mirror.
P12Come, drink. And let the route show you the way.
Locations chosen verse by verse, drone flights over vineyards and archaeological sites, and studio tricks: a backdrop curtain, a mirror for reflections and a fan for the hair. Before shooting, permits for every heritage site and natural area.
The first palette idea came from Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr: greys, desaturated tones, grain and melancholy. In the colour brief for the colourist we refined it into an organic, dense and restrained image, closer to a film than to a tourism ad. References: Call Me by Your Name for skin and Mediterranean light, La Chimera for photochemical imperfection, The Eight Mountains for rock and greys, and Sirāt for matter and texture. No teal & orange, no postcard greens: if the day is grey, it stays grey. Shot in S-Log3 on a Sony A7S III.
The original score is by Pau Fàbrega. The first part supports the voice of the ode; in the second, as the text reaches the vineyard and the wine, the theme draws on the sardana L'Empordà by composer Enric Morera, with lyrics by Joan Maragall. A melody every local recognises, reimagined so the land can be heard without being named.
Horizontal and vertical versions, voice-over in Catalan, Spanish and English, and subtitles in German, French and Dutch.
