Film screening - The Shepherd Resistance: Shepherding in Catalonia Today

Shot in Barcelona and Girona in the autumn and winter of 2022, ‘The Shepherd Resistance: Shepherding in Catalonia Today’ hears first-hand from four (semi)extensive shepherds, both male and female, how bureaucracy and public policies affect their lifestyle. 

This film by filmaker Paula Escribano is shot in both Spanish and Catalan with English and Spanish subtitles. It  travels through mountains, valleys and forests with herds of goats and sheep to discover how the art of shepherding is at risk of disappearance. 

Despite its multiple environmental and social benefits, the shepherding lifestyle is currently being forced to adapt to the rules designed for the industrial production of meat and by-products in a process that is proving almost impossible for shepherds.

Watch the trailer

About the director

Paula Escribano is a social and cultural anthropologist based at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Barcelona. She works on the impact of state over-regulation and neoliberal policies on the agrarian transformation and currently leading the research project ‘Livelihood strategies, neoliberalism and environmental values’, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. She is a visiting researcher at the Political Ecology Research Group in the International Institute of Social Sciences, Netherlands. 

Paula directs and produces ethnographic documentaries. One of her latest publications is 'Playing by the rules: formalisation in the agroecology sector during the COVID-19 pandemic' for the Journal of Peasant Studies.