With this feature film, which won the New Directors Award at the San Sebastian Festival, the German director and screenwriter, who had a Spanish father, Isabel Lamberti, opens “a window onto the marginalized people” of Cañada Real, the largest irregular settlement in Europe. Lamberti writes and directs the story of a family living their last spring in Cañada Real before being evicted, as their place, the “chabolas” (illegal shantytowns that the inhabitants of this Madrid slum build themselves), will be demolished. Using documentary resources, Last Days of Spring exposes an actual situation starring the Gabarre-Mendoza family, local inhabitants whose performance earned them the Best Acting Award at Les Arcs Film Festival. Docudrama or hyperrealist fiction? In any case, the important thing is that the film shows a social reality that reveals the transcendence of family ties and community life. The film also exposes the coping mechanisms of the members of this family in the face of eviction and the relationship between the police authority and the illegal inhabitants, emphasizing the contemporary notion of “property”. Review by: Leticia Chaurand