The Cathedral

KATEDRÁLA

Slovakia, 2022, 87'

Animated by an overwhelming religious sentiment, Justo Gallego has devoted 60 years of his life to a crazy, ambitious project: the construction of a cathedral in his village, Mejorada del Campo. With no architectural expertise or permits, working almost only with waste materials, over the years he has built a grandiose, chaotic structure. With his fellow villagers considering him a madman and a mythomaniac, the former monk has worked selflessly on this project investing all his resources until 2000, i.e., when the cathedral was acknowledged and appreciated by the art world, ending up as a tourist attraction. The movie is made up of footage filmed over the decades to tell Justo’s incredible story and the uncertainties pending on the future of the cathedral after he dies. The Cathedral is the portrayal of an obsession, of a life entirely devoted to the creation of an artwork (in the wake of Facteur Cheval or Argelaguer’s Tarzan), and makes us deal with the contradictions that arise when the result of a deeply personal conviction becomes successful.