Institut Ramon LLull

Impossibly old Bernadeta lies dying in an old farmhouse in the Guilleries mountain range. The women of her family prepare for her passing, particularly those who are dead. The matriarch, Joana, is arranging a feast to welcome her to the other side: the riotous, purple-dark underworld to which they have all been condemned since Joana made a deal with a devil in order to find a husband, and then reneged on her side of it.

This densely layered story covers more than four centuries of legend and history, yet unfolds in a single day. It is told in the many spirit voices that overshadow the living inside this bewitched farmhouse, interrogating storytelling convention itself: what is remembered and what is forgotten, whose stories are valued and believed, what myths underlie our present moment. Its visceral, sensorial, gritty, and irreverent language approximates oral history and enchants and enthralls like a tale told around a bonfire.