Only on Earth

Forest fires and heat waves have once again ravaged southern Europe and Spain over the summer, and this makes the experience of this beautiful and lingering Danish documentary from last year about firefighters and horse breeders in Galicia all the more intense and intrusive.

We follow a team of firefighters, both at home and at work (often in the middle of fire zones) and a family that has lived for generations among Galicia's large population of wild horses.

As the film magazine EKKO summed up in their review: “The camera is calm and observant. The audience is allowed to immerse themselves in the small scenes of everyday life and disasters that Robin Petré and photographer María Goya Barquet capture imperceptibly and make the audience fellow observers of. [...] The footage of the chaotic sea of flames growing inexorably larger has a general human fascination.”

The many serene night shots of entire landscapes covered in fire, ash and smoke possess a meditative and otherworldly beauty — and are at the same time not so slightly frightening and disturbing.

Director: Robin Petré
Country/year: Denmark, Spain, Sweden, 2025
Running time: 93 min.
Formato: DCP
Language: Danish subtitles
Age limit: Allowed for all, but children under 7 years old are not recommended

Part of the series: Spanish Film Weeks
Documentary about forest fires in Galicia, miniseries about the 1981 coup attempt in the Spanish parliament, youth films about rap in Barcelona, a comedy about a celebratory dinner for Franco and a cleaning opera from Andalusia. Spanish film lovers are widely distributed in the Iberian Peninsula - both geographically, historically and in terms of genre.