A sun-drenched gay paradise gives way to clinical corridors and quiet closets in this poignant, late-in-life reckoning with freedom and desire.

Vicente is 76 and has spent decades living openly as a gay man in the Spanish resort enclave of Maspalomas. After a sudden stroke leaves him hospitalised, he wakes to find himself relocated to a nursing home in Donostia, placed there by the daughter he abandoned years earlier. In this new world of routines, supervision and unspoken rules, Vicente stops mentioning his sexuality – almost without noticing how easily he slips back into the closet he once fought so hard to escape.

Shot on 35mm with a restrained, observational style, Maspalomas sidesteps melodrama in favour of quiet emotional truth. Winner of Best Actor (José Ramón Soroiz) at the San Sebastián Film Festival, it is a moving meditation on visibility, ageing and the lifelong effort it takes to live honestly in systems designed to make differences disappear.

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