Synopsis
Spanish, Catalan, English, and Urdu with English subtitles
With Carles Francino, Neus Agulló, Kandarp Mehta, Isabel Rocatti, Empar Ferrer, María Maroto, Aïda Ballmann, Rosanna Espinós, Manuel Canchal, María Zamora, Estela Martínez
When Enric returns from Manchester to his small hometown in Spain for his grandmother Teresa’s funeral, he uncovers a part of her life he never imagined. Through his memories and new discoveries, a tender story unfolds — one that connects Teresa, the village dressmaker, and Samir, a Pakistani shopkeeper with a hidden talent for tailoring.
Years earlier, what began as a cautious favor — lending Samir her sewing machine to make a costume for his daughter — grew into an unlikely friendship stitched together by shared exile, craftsmanship, and quiet courage. Against the watchful eyes of a close-knit community, Teresa learns to confront her own fears of difference and belonging.
Directed by Sergi Miralles, Grandma & The Foreigner is a gentle, heartfelt film about the beauty of empathy and the courage it takes to open ourselves to others. Through interwoven generations and cultures, it celebrates the small acts of kindness that can transform both our past and our future.
Press
“Miralles’s film tackles the systematic rejection of the other from two different perspectives. One, the most common, is that of the foreigner in a strange land. The other is more subtle and speaks of the emigrant who, upon returning home, no longer recognizes their own origins.” – Salvador Llopart, La Vanguardia
“A pleasant, simply made film promoting tolerance.” – Arturo Tena, Cine con Ñ
Notes on the Film
“In many Westerns, the story began with the arrival of a foreigner in town. Foreigners were dark, strange characters, with a mysterious past from which they fled and who came to destabilize the peace of the town. ‘Foreigner’ may seem to be a word that is only relevant in these films, but the reality is that in many villages along the Spanish Mediterranean coast it is a term that continues to be used today.
Being a foreigner is frowned upon. As in western movies, foreigners arouse certain suspicions in the locals who think that they have come to steal the things that by birth they are entitled to: work, land, love… But there are many ways of being a foreigner and, without knowing it, many people from our land have been immigrants in their time, still are and may be in the future.
With a dramatic comedy tone, Grandma & the Foreigner talks about what it has meant for three different generations to become foreigners. The film comes from a true story. In it, I wanted to show three stories of immigrants: Enric, a young man from the village who has decided to go to live in Manchester; Samir, a Pakistani who has set up a fruit store in the village but who was actually a tailor, and the story of my grandmother, who emigrated as a young woman to Paris where she worked as a dressmaker and years later returned to her hometown.
In the film, we unite these three stories to reflect on how we relate to people with whom we do not share the same history and culture.”
– Sergi Miralles, director
