Alma de Sant Pere

Story

By thirty you should have achieved something, or at least be someone special. A thirty-year-old needs projects. Alma and her four Barcelona friends share a big dream: to make their first million no matter how, maybe by opening a stylish hipster bar. The end justifies the means, and whether the plans are realistic hardly matters.

Then enterprising Alma’s grandmother’s flat, in an old metalworkers’ building, opens up unexpected possibilities. By buying the whole building, paying off the old tenants and turning it into modern designer flats, each of the friends could make a fortune. The timing for property speculation could not be worse, though: the twist arrives in the cruel shape of the financial crisis. When the bubble bursts, the cold developer may find herself the one who has been played, in a hell of a mess that takes real ingenuity to get out of.

Trial, error, atonement and taking responsibility are at the heart of the film. Although the story moves in a world of economic realities, above all it is a light, life-affirming coming-of-age story that looks even at failure with compassion. Naturalistic acting and split-screen cinematography bring bubbling Barcelona to the screen in all its rough charm. Alma de Sant Pere gives the financial crisis a human face.