Fiction as Intervention in Everyday Life (Working Title, Fiction Feature Film)

Application summary

This project proposes a fiction film embedded in the everyday life of Almadén, a former mining town in southern Spain marked by economic decline and social stagnation. Professional actors stage a fictitious social movement directly in the streets and squares where daily life unfolds. Built from fieldwork and grounded in the real desires and frustrations of residents, the narrative dramatizes struggles for the town’s future while remaining entirely fictional. Filming transforms Almadén into a living set. Banners on balconies, murals on abandoned houses, agit-prop performances in plazas, even staged demonstrations turn the town into a hybrid of cinema and civic space. These interventions are carefully coordinated yet designed to feel disruptive, creating a porous boundary between fiction and lived reality. Even when cameras stop, the traces remain: a mural still visible, a banner still hanging, a conversation still resonating. Methodologically, the project uses fiction not just as representation but as intervention. Scenes are crafted with cinematic tools – mise-en-scène, staging, performance – yet placed in the flow of everyday life, where townspeople encounter them without the distancing frame of the screen. Filming captures both the scripted performances and the spontaneous responses of residents, revealing moments of tension, recognition, or indifference. At its core, the project asks: What happens when fiction speaks in the voice of a community? Can actors channel local frustrations in ways that catalyze reflection or action? What is the legitimacy of a staged demonstration, or a fictional social movement, if it resonates with genuine grievances? Can fiction act as an imaginative rehearsal space where alternative presents are tested, embodied, and negotiated in real time? By embedding fiction into daily life, the project explores ways in which cinematic fiction is not an escape from reality, but a way of intervening in it.