REGARD 2025: The Long Valley (dirs. Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck, Robert Machoian) | Review
With its meticulously crafted cinematography, The Long Valley poetically and realistically captures the struggles faced by this Californian valley and its residents.
Bordered on one side by the ocean and on the other by a mountainous desert landscape, the Salinas Valley lies in California, south of the San Francisco Bay. Nicknamed “the Salad Bowl of the World,” it is home to vast agricultural fields and attracts many workers from Central and South America seeking a better future. However, this seemingly boundless valley is far from the El Dorado they had envisioned. This is what Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and Robert Machoian strive to document in The Long Valley. The short film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2025, followed by its Quebec debut the same year at Saguenay International Short Film Festival, aka REGARD.
With grace and meticulous attention to detail, the directors capture the valley’s landscapes in their raw reality. They portray the creeping drought gripping California – illustrated by a dry ditch where a discarded soda can lies, likely tossed by one of the many drivers speeding along the highway that runs parallel to the valley. They also depict the devastating force of tempestuous winds, which can tear through the valley’s prefab homes.
The sweeping landscape shots are interspersed with close-ups of a few protagonists, men from Central and South America, who share their experiences in the valley, the hardships they endure, and, for the older ones, the regrets that haunt them. They all crossed the border with the hope of finding work in the valley to support their families. But the exhausting labor in the fields, the inhospitality of the place, and the distance from their loved ones lead them to question the meaning of their lives here and the fleeting nature of time.
The themes explored by the directors resonate strongly with recent events. On the one hand, the excesses of intensive farming in California, which depletes and dries out the soil, contributing to the devastating wildfires ravaging the region. On the other, the return of President Trump to power, marked by harsher border controls and an aggressive immigration policy.
The 29th Saguenay International Short Film Festival, also known as REGARD, is running on March 19-23, 2025.
