The Olive Tree

Alma is twenty and works on a chicken farm in the countryside near Valencia. Her grandfather has stopped speaking. Years ago the family sold his ancient olive tree, more than two thousand years old, to pay for a business venture that went nowhere, and he has never forgiven them. Alma decides the only way to bring him back is to bring back the tree. She discovers it now stands in the lobby of an energy company in Düsseldorf, as a corporate symbol. With her uncle and a reluctant co-worker, she sets off across Europe in a truck to steal it back.

Icíar Bollaín directed it from a script by Paul Laverty, Ken Loach's longtime writer, and you can feel that same mix of social anger and humour. The film is about the Spanish crisis, about families who sold their past to survive, and about corporations that buy roots as decoration. But it is also a road movie, funny and a little crazy. Anna Castillo is terrific as Alma, fierce and impulsive, and Javier Gutiérrez as her uncle gives the film much of its comedy.

It is a fable, and it doesn't always avoid sentimentality. But it is warm, clever and heartfelt, and the final act, with its unexpected wave of solidarity, is genuinely moving. A film about what we inherit, what we sell, and what can never be bought back.