Madrid-born Spanish-American director and photographer Andrea Mae Perez has already one feature under her belt on our site in her co-directed music video for Human Tongues, Fraud Syndrome. We love her eye for colour and magical realism which she continues to explore in her short Desert-ar, which we are proud to premiere.

Focusing on representation of Spanish women, particularly the ones Perez grew up around, Desert-ar is an evocative tragicomic piece set in a traditional southern Spanish landscape. Here, it is memories that speak, both Florita's, a 10-year-old girl pursuing inner peace, and those of the archetypical Spanish characters of her Andalusian “finca”. We see the doorman, the intellectual and the three gossipy old women. 

In this backdrop a life-changing incident for Florita occurs one night when she discovers her mother Sonsoles making love to a man and is invited to join them. This event has a fatal ending when the mother falls out of the window. After this happens, no one really knows who is to blame, although everyone appears to have an opinion. As all characters continually invade her deserted escape, Florita is filled with a sense of guilt that will only cease the moment she realises the isolated landscape is not enough to save her from her adrift life.