Morning in the lonely mountains of the Cuban Sierra Maestra. An old man sets out to purchase rice for his daily meal. He packs a few belongings to offer them to his neighbours to buy or exchange for food. As he is walking, the poverty and lack of the simplest necessities of life in this remote region are revealed with every step. The neighbours have no use for what he has to sell and nothing to give away. So he takes the bus to try his luck in the valley. When the bus breaks down halfway to the valley, the man continues on foot. Suddenly the call “Parihuela!” is heard from somewhere in the wilderness. People emerge from the forest carrying a sick man on a traditional stretcher. The old man helps and for a second becomes part of a community... The talented young Cuban director Marcel Beltrán manages to create an atmospheric view of a world where time seems to have stopped.

– Paulo de Carvalho