Vaca 2018

1875, Biscay during the Third Carlist War — In the heat of a grueling frontline, army sergeant Carmelo Mendiluze learns from a young errand boy, Ilegorri, that his neighbor Manuel Iriguíbel has joined the exhausted battalion. A cautious bond forms as Carmelo befriends the inexperienced Manuel, whose reputation as an expert aizcolari (log cutter) cannot mask the tremor of fear that grips him under fire. When Manuel panics and the battle ends, he crawls away from a trove of the dead, naked and smeared with the blood of a mortally wounded neighbor, Mendiluze. The escape goes unseen by all but a solitary cow, a quiet witness to a man’s crushing shame. The war leaves a mark on villages, families, and memory, setting in motion a feud that will echo for decades.

1905, rural Guipúzcoa — a clash of families and buried secrets — Thirty years later, the Mendiluze and Iriguíbel kin are still bound by old resentments. Manuel, now an elderly figure, is tainted in local eyes as a coward, spending his days painting the family cows under the watchful gaze of his three granddaughters, the offspring of Ignacio Iriguíbel and Madalen. Ignacio and Carmelo’s son, Juan Mendiluze, keep the traditional crafts alive, turning to aizcolari skills as a lifeline for the two families’ legacies. Amid the friction, a new spark flickers: Catalina, Juan’s sister, quietly harbors a deep attraction for Ignacio, a passion that Ignacio reluctantly reciprocates as they practice log-cutting in the woods. Paulina, the Mendiluze widow, warns that Ignacio’s affection could doom the Mendiluze clan. In a bid to tilt the fragile balance between rival clans, the grown Ilegorri engineers a public competition between Ignacio and Juan. Ignacio’s victory launches him on a rising arc as a celebrated aizcolari, while Catalina and Ignacio begin a secret, increasingly dangerous affair that braids together love, pride, and danger.

1915, spring — fame, fault lines, and a concealed family tree — A decade later, Ignacio returns from national contests a celebrated figure, yet the triumph has cooled his warmth at home: Madalen’s memory lingers as Ignacio’s neglect of his wife strains the household. Catalina reenters his life, and together they have a ten-year-old son, Peru, whose existence tightens the knot of loyalties and loyalties betrayed. After Madalen’s death, the frayed bond between Juan and Catalina grows even more brittle, with Juan’s troubling, lingering incestuous fixation on his sister threatening to unravel everything. To escape an impossible gravity, Catalina and Ignacio plot to take Peru and the pair’s shared history to a new land in America. A fragile friendship forms among the children—Peru, Catalina’s son with Ignacio, and Cristina, his half-sister—under the wary supervision of their fragile grandfather, Manuel, as they wander the mountain forests. The adults’ past choices collide with the ethical shadows of their actions, and the family’s secret history pushes them toward perilous futures. In the end, Peru and Cristina’s bond is tested when their parents attempt to flee together, leaving behind a path that will redefine bloodlines and loyalties.

1936, summer, Civil War shadows — a village, a frontier, and a reckoning — The landscape grows even more dangerous as Peru, now a photojournalist returning to the Basque lands, finds the Mendiluze farmhouse empty and the political ground shifting under the Nationalists’ ascent. Juan, wearing the Carlist red with a stubborn pride, stands with the Nationalist side, while Peru returns to the Iriguíbel farmhouse seeking shelter and truth. Cristina resumes a fragile bond with Lucas, Iligorri’s son, as the men of the region seek refuge in the forest as war roars through the valley. Lucas dies in the turmoil, and Peru is captured among the survivors. The fate of the men is sealed with executions, yet Peru is spared when Juan recognizes him as his nephew—a moment that bridges generations and loyalties in a single breath. Reunited with Cristina, Peru and Cristina press onward toward the frontier, chasing a future beyond the mountains that once held them in their childhood games and dangerous secrets.

This sweeping saga, spanning generations and wars, threads together memory, family feuds, forbidden love, and the enduring craft of the Basque people. It follows how a single act of fear or courage can ripple through decades, shaping identities and destinies long after the battles fade. The film renders a landscape where tradition, ambition, and longing collide, inviting viewers to witness how past choices haunt present lives and may yet steer the course toward a precarious, hopeful horizon.