Aguaviva

Faced with a rapidly dwindling population, the town of Aguaviva in Aragon, north-west Spain, decided to reinvigorate its community by inviting foreign immigrants to settle there. This delicately observed documentary from director Ariadna Pujol shows how the new arrivals, mostly from Argentina and Romania, have nestled beside the town’s Spanish inhabitants. Two Argentinian women crop up most: one who’s forced to watch her parents head back home; another desperate for her husband to join her and her kids. The locals also chime in, a few muttering about cultural dilution, but integration’s been neither seamless nor overly fractious here, merely racked with uncertainty for the newcomers. A gentle portrait, perhaps too much so, but one unafraid to embrace the subtleties of real life and that occasionally proves truly moving.