One day, producer Ramón Campos (responsible for successes like The Asunta case and movies like One year, one night) taught Daniel Sánchez Arévalo (director of dark blue almost black either Cousinsamong others) a video that went viral on YouTube. The two men have been friends for a long time, but have never worked together. The video showed a rondalla from Santa Eulalia de Mos. Like almost everyone outside of Galicia, the filmmaker didn’t know what a rondalla was.
In those minutes he saw dozens of musicians, with traditional costumes, bagpipes, tambourines, percussion and instruments forming and playing. But what caught his attention the most was that instead of traditional songs, they did a version of the Stunned by AC/DC. “I swear I went crazy, I got goosebumps,” remembers Sánchez Arévalo from the editorial staff of elDiario.es. When they finished watching the video, Ramón Campos challenged him: “Why don’t we make a film about this?”
They made it and it came out in early 2026. Roundels It is a film that is inspired by British social comedy and shows this Galician context of barnacles, unemployment and deaths at sea, but always from the empathy, unity and smile that these rondallas provoke in the people who compose them. And that was the director’s idea, to show “this feeling of community, of feeling of belonging to something for the love of tradition and music”. “I was very fascinated by the energy they gave off, the good vibes, how fun it was. And I said to myself: ‘Holy shit, I’d like to make a film that conveys that same energy,'” says Sánchez Arévalo.
Roundels It even becomes a political message. Unity and goodness in times of evil, as Mauro Entrialgo would say. And moreover, as musicians like Rodrigo Cuevas or conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin claim during the recent New Year’s Concert, demonstrating that tradition can be looked at from modernity. Folklore and tradition are not synonymous with obsolete or nostalgic values, but can be pushed in directions that open up new possibilities.
The reference to English social cinema is no coincidence. Sánchez Arévalo cites as clear references Monty complete And Touch the wind, in addition to the French The large bathroom“films with an openly popular character, which are family films, but adult at the same time”. There was something else in this video that hooked him, it was that the current director of the rondalla was a young girl of 19 years old. Her story became that of the young woman played by Judith Fernández, who, along with Fer Fraga, are the revelations of a cast led by Javier Gutiérrez and María Vázquez, and who has a magnificent Tamar Novas as the great comic counterpoint and scene-stealer of the show.
Sánchez Arévalo filmed in Galicia. With real rondallas. With real barnacles. On the authentic market. He points out that even outside of the final edit, there were “very documentary” parts with which we wanted to capture the beauty that is there. A decision which also helped a director “from Madrid with Cantabrian blood” to discover the truth. For this reason, “the first decision was that everything casting It was Galician. “But then 90% of the team is Galician. And I told them, “If you see something that doesn’t suit you, please tell me.” Don’t be shy, don’t stay silent. Tell me everything because I want Galicians to embrace the film and feel proud, represented. » After the first screenings in Vigo, they saw that people felt that the film belonged to them and they felt calm.
You have to be very in touch with life, with what is happening around you, so as not to lose focus. In this sense, I think that being the father of a five-year-old daughter will help me a lot.
Daniel Sanchez Arevalo
— Director
In Roundels He plays with tones, as he always liked. It could be defined as a comedy-drama or drama with touches of humor. For this reason, the balance of tones, because with a character like Tamar Novas, who is more comedy-oriented, was complicated, so “we had to find the point where this character seems tender, amusing, funny, but without overdoing it.” A “very, very fine line” that he maintains in his films, in which he tries “not to force the comedy and not to force the drama”. This is why he claims these genres. “I have just shot a thriller, my first thriller, and I have already told you that it was much simpler than shooting a comedy or a drama,” he adds with humor.
Just like he did in dark blue almost blackwhere he discovered Quim Gutiérrez, Marta Etura and Raúl Arévalo, or The big Spanish familywhere he did the same with Patrick Criado, here he also opts for two almost unknown faces. Something that is almost a trademark of the house: “When I think of my stories, I think that there is a part of me which, perhaps, is not completely conscious, but which is looking a little for this combination of having very established actors and giving testimony to children, young people, with talent. Or not so young, but with overflowing talent and who have not had a vehicle to be able to demonstrate their talent. Five films in, there have always been actors nominated in the Breakthrough Acting category at the Goya. I hope that happens in this one too.
This year marks 20 years of these dazzling beginnings, and in these two decades a lot has happened, which is why Sánchez Arévalo tries to never lose the pulse of what is happening in the streets, so that his stories do not seem written from the point of view of someone who does not set foot on the street. “It’s true that you get older and you have to be very in touch with life, with what’s happening around you, so as not to lose your concentration. In this sense, I think it will help me a lot to be the father of a five-year-old daughter and to see how she experiences things and what’s happening around her. The worst thing a filmmaker can do is isolate himself. That’s where the slow death of the filmmaker begins, if you isolate yourself in your point out of sight and don’t look around,” he emphasizes.
This is why he always surrounds himself with friends from whom he demands absolute sincerity when he shows them the first cuts of his films. An exercise in sincerity to continue writing for another 20 years without losing the pulse of society.
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