Joan Valls

A joyful tale filled with music. The rise of radio. The jazz big bands. The legendary clubs and ballrooms. The soundtracks of the great musical films and TV shows. Sex and romance, gangsters, luxury cars and palm trees. From Barcelona to New York, with a stop in Cuba. The birth of Las Vegas. The sound of the maracas. Chihuahuas everywhere. The incredible life story of Xavier Cugat (1900-90).

El Mort Viu portraits the Gifra family: the father, Joan, unmotivated and unemployed, a passionate follower of Saint Rabuci; Marc, the ever-angry older brother, a hard-working yet embittered man who has taken the reigns of the family; and the problematic younger son Llàtzer, a NEET parasite that feeds on the decline of his family and the birth of a monster settling in a very peculiar town, between dramedy and fantasy, through the filter of Spanish tradition of very dark humor.