Strawberry Fields. Julia Montilla

Staweberry Fields, the winning project at the 11th edition of the Premi de Videocreació awards, shines the spotlight on women working as day labourers picking strawberries in Huelva, a part of Spain that has become the paradigm of the effects of agro-industrial capitalism. The film is based on a critique of the urban-centric approach that dominates today’s narrative, turning a blind eye on rural livelihoods and the conditions that migrant labourers work in. Through this lens, the project explores the continuity between the colonial past and present-day extractivism, calling into question the visual and narrative absences that overshadow these workers.

Somewhere between a visual essay and experimental film, the production borrows its title from the Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields”, using an enlightened and fragmentary language to address the political construction of what we see and its power to impinge on what it represents. Drawing on Huelva as an example, it paints a critical picture of the physical and human landscapes of intensive farming, breaking away with the realistic effect of cinematographic devices. This project aligns with the principles of representational intersectionality to stand up against dominant narratives and open up spaces for the subjects in the shadows to be seen.