Searching for 'La innocència' in the Serra de Tramuntana

PalmaA quiet trip on a mountain road. A mother, a six-year-old boy, and a situation that, at first, does not seem to have anything extraordinary about it. But something does not quite add up. Little by little, the gestures, the reactions of little Pau –played by Marc Miralles– and the situations surrounding the characters make a tension grow that leads to an unexpected twist. This is the premise of La innocència, the short film by Miki Duran that arrives at the Colonya Palma Muntanya Film Fest.

The story was born in a rush. Duran explains that the project arose from an IB3 call for proposals. The producer, Andreu Fullana, spoke clearly to him: they had very little time to present a proposal. But Duran already had a story in mind related to a kidnapping and, in just one week, they wrote the script, prepared the project, and planned the financing. "It came out very quickly, because I already had the idea quite advanced," he explains.

The starting point is apparently simple: a family situation that could be that of separated parents with a minor in their care. There is an argument between the father and the mother and, afterwards, the story begins to mutate. Duran wanted to play precisely with this first reading that the viewer makes of it. "The short film plays with the concept of innocence," he points out. "It refers to the innocence of a child and that of the viewer, who believes what they see," he explains. Until the twist comes.

The presence of the child is fundamental to achieve this effect. Working with an actor of only six years old, however, posed one of the great challenges of the production. "It has been impressive," says Duran. "Casting with children is especially complicated because they can change their minds, get tired, freeze in front of a camera, or simply decide that they do not want to continue," he comments. In this case, the casting director, Belen Calafrei, organized a couple of meetings with Marc Miralles before making the final decision. "We saw that he was a very intelligent child and we understood that we were playing it safe. He is the great discovery of the short film," he boasts.

La innocència was filmed in April 2025 at different locations in Mallorca, mainly in the Serra de Tramuntana, but also in Santa Eugènia and a small part in Marratxí. The entire shoot was concentrated into only four days. An intense process that, as the director acknowledges, did not end with the filming. The post-production dragged on for months and ended up becoming one of the most demanding parts of the project. "With this short film I almost went crazy," he admits. He did not expect the process to be so long and the film was not definitively finished until the end of the year.

A dozen selections

Now, however, the short film has already begun its journey. It premiered at the Atlàntida Film Fest and has already accumulated a dozen selections at festivals, including the Kàlidoscopi in Valencia and the Corto Pilar (Alicante), two qualifying events for the Goya awards. It is also scheduled to be shown at the Evolution Film Festival and is now arriving at the Colonya Palma Muntanya Film Fest. "We have started recently," explains Duran, who anticipates that over the next year La innocència will continue its festival run.

Behind the appearance of a thriller, however, there is an issue that the director considers especially important: child abductions. It is a topic that, according to Duran, remains "very taboo" and is not talked about enough, even though it is a reality that occurs all over the world. "The short film does not intend to explain everything or become an explicit discourse on this problem, but rather to make the viewer think about it through fiction," he explains.