With The Song of the Olive Trees, Alex Camilleri composes a Maltese road movie with Mediterranean accents, where the traditional song of għana connects a young woman in search of emancipation to a guardian of memory. Between poetry, melancholy, and energy, the film resonates with the meeting of two generations.
In his second feature film, Maltese filmmaker Alex Camilleri makes an unexpected inheritance the starting point of a journey across the island. The Song of the Olive Trees combines drama and road movie, following Mar, a young woman determined to leave Malta, and Nenu, a keeper of a unique musical tradition. Their meeting transforms a quest for land into a narrative of transmission, propelled by the sounds and landscapes of the archipelago.
The story opens on a threshold: after the death of her mother, Mar considers leaving and starting anew elsewhere. The inheritance she receives, however, complicates this departure, as several poorly identified parcels force her to traverse Malta to find them. From this practical endeavor arises an inner journey, both vibrant, melancholic, and deeply tied to the island.
Mar, a quest for emancipation along the Maltese roads
Mar does not merely traverse places. She moves forward with contained anger, fueled by family tensions and the feeling that the future is shrinking for youth on an island largely shaped by tourism. The inherited lands become much more than a file to settle: they hold her back in a world she thought she had already left. Each detour gives concrete form to her desire for emancipation.
The structure of the film supports this movement without reducing it to a simple treasure hunt. References shift, encounters change the itinerary, and the journey takes on an almost unpredictable character. When Mar meets Nenu, the narrative veers, as if the road itself had made room for the unexpected. The duo brings together two generations, two ways of inhabiting the island, and two relationships to memory. This collision does not erase their differences: rather, it allows them to see each other differently.
The għana, a living tradition that becomes a common language
Before unfolding as fiction, the film is anchored in a session of għana, a traditional Maltese song based on exchange and improvisation. This beginning immediately gives the narrative a documentary texture, attentive to a practice transmitted orally and shaped by the presence of the performers. Nenu Borg appears in the film playing himself, with the confidence of an artist whose legend already belongs to his country’s culture. He thus makes his first steps in cinema at over eighty years old, having ceased the sung duels fifteen years earlier. His presence does not resemble a decorative apparition: it brings an experience, a rhythm, and an embodied memory to the film.
The għana relies on improvised responses, incisive rhymes, and a good dose of humor. One can perceive the energy of a verbal duel, without confusing this ancient form with a simple equivalent of contemporary rap. Participants must listen, bounce back, and quickly find the right formula. Virtuosity matters, but the relationship between the voices is equally essential. Camilleri films a tradition that is practiced in the present, rather than a relic displayed behind glass.
For Mar, learning this song opens a new space for expression. Nenu initiates her into these duels where anger can transform into play, and then into shared words. The sharp words offer her a means to channel what she does not always manage to say to her family or those around her. Music does not magically resolve difficulties, and the film does not make it a simplistic therapy. Rather, it gives the young woman tools to articulate her opposition and take her place. In this transmission, the master does not speak alone: his student responds, invents, and evolves the conversation.
A Mediterranean island between charm and fragility
The Mediterranean in the film is not an immobile postcard backdrop. It reveals itself through the roads, the places crossed, and the legacies that resist change, while the question of the future remains at the heart of the narrative. This approach may remind one of how a journey unveils multiple faces of a territory, beyond its most familiar images. To prolong this desire for island exploration, an escape to Corfu and its Ionian Sea landscapes offers another Mediterranean getaway. The places change, but the question of the balance between discovery and transformation of islands remains particularly evocative.
The circulation between tradition and modernity constitutes one of the most sensitive springs of the work. Malta appears as a living space, traversed by tourism and the legitimate desire of the young to build their own future. In this context, traditional song becomes an act of cultural resistance: it preserves words, ways to gather, and a collective memory. This resistance does not take the form of an abstract discourse, as it flows through voices, gazes, and exchanges among the characters. The film thus reminds us that culture remains alive when it is transmitted, practiced, and reinvented. Camilleri’s poetry does not erase tensions; it gives them a human resonance.
The taste for itineraries and unique places will find a different echo in the discovery of Ostuni, the white city of Puglia. This Italian city, like the Maltese archipelago in the film, invites one to look beyond immediate attractions to consider what shapes its identity. The journey then becomes a way to pay attention to traces, uses, and local stories. In the feature film, this attention is expressed through Mar’s journey, forced to recognize parcels that tie her to her island despite herself. The search for land gradually transforms into self-discovery. The landscapes accompany this evolution without ever taking the characters’ place.
A film driven by music, performers, and a poetry without nostalgia
The charm of the film lies partly in its balance between simplicity and energy. Camilleri favors a narrative that allows encounters to breathe while maintaining the momentum of the road movie. Poetry does not take on the appearance of a frozen contemplation or a cozy nostalgia. Instead, it is nourished by the impulse of songs, the humor of exchanges, and the friction between generations. The melodies associated with Nenu and Mar prolong their presence long after certain scenes. This sonic persistence gives the title an almost incantatory dimension.
Nenu Borg has a solar presence, reinforced by his unique appearance and his direct way of occupying space. In front of him, Michela Farrugia creates a more inward character, whose anger does not always manifest in a frontal manner. Her performance reveals Mar’s hesitations and impulses without confining them to a single register. The contrast between the two actors enriches the emotional heart of the story. Nenu seems to carry an ancient tradition lightly, while Mar gradually discovers how to make it her own. This balance gives the duo its seductive power.
The landscapes as a space for exploration and resonance
The walking, the journey, and the discovery contribute to the tone of the narrative, even though the heart of the story remains the relationship between Mar and Nenu. For those whom the film might inspire to wander, these remarkable sites for unforgettable hikes offer another way to read a landscape by taking the time to traverse it. In Camilleri’s work, the road is not a touristy interlude: it confronts the heroine with her heritage and her own contradictions. It is in this progression that the narrative finds a part of its intensity.
The musical transmission is not limited to a technical learning. It requires listening, trust, and the acceptance of a dialogue between distant sensibilities. Nenu does not make Mar the simple passive heir of knowledge that he would have preserved intact. Through their exchanges, the young woman responds in her own way and brings new energy to the song. This relationship gives the film an open view of tradition, which remains alive only by circulating between people. The old and the contemporary cease to oppose mechanically.
Mar’s anger constitutes one of the most important emotional threads of the film. She bears the weight of a family that struggles to understand her, but also her anxiety about an uncertain future. In discovering għana, she does not lose this anger; she learns to give it form, rhythm, and voice. This shift makes her evolution more convincing than a sudden calm. Music becomes a force of transformation, without erasing the disagreements or constraints that surround it.
This alliance of beauty and movement can also evoke the surroundings of Lake Garda, a jewel in northern Italy, another territory where the journey is constructed to the rhythm of landscapes and stops. The parallel lies less in geographical resemblance than in the pleasure of exploring a place in its nuances. The film, too, invites one not to reduce a destination to a seductive image. Behind the Mediterranean allure of Malta lie issues of memory, transmission, and the space given to new generations. This social depth gives Mar’s journey a significance that surpasses her initial quest.
A rewarded work that makes culture an act of resistance
The strength of the feature film also lies in its way of hosting different tonalities side by side. It can be joyful without being light, melancholic without trapping itself in regret, and contemplative while maintaining real liveliness. This amplitude allows the meeting between Mar and Nenu to maintain its spontaneity. Their bond does not build as a lesson delivered from one character to another, but as an exchange where each transforms. The film prefers the delicacy of gestures and lines to insistent explanation. The song acts as a memory in motion.
By showcasing an oral practice at work, Camilleri draws attention to what risks disappearing when traditions no longer find support. Culture is presented as a shared experience, but also as a struggle to continue to exist in a rapidly changing environment. This notion resonates particularly in a world where artistic expressions and places of creation are sometimes precarious. The film does not turn its narrative into a manifesto; it rather roots its concerns in the relationship between two beings. It is this intimate scale that makes its reflection accessible. The project has indeed been awarded at Tribeca, where Alex Camilleri received the best screenplay award.
The journey can take very different forms depending on the connections one seeks to reconnect and the places one chooses to explore. For a getaway for two, these romantic getaways in France outline another idea of traveling, more intimate and focused on sharing. However, in Camilleri’s work, the essential lies not solely in the destination, but in what the journey makes possible between its characters. Mar and Nenu learn to meet beyond their age and experience gaps. Their complicity is born in the words, silences, and rhythms they tame together. The island thus becomes a space where the past can dialogue with the present.
With its narrative of lands to recover, roads that bifurcate, and sung duels, The Song of the Olive Trees composes a sensitive portrait of Malta. The film combines the drive of a young woman with the experience of an artist who has carried a tradition in his voice for decades. Their meeting opens a space where anger transforms into expression and where collective memory addresses new listeners. The work finally retains a particular freshness: it views heritage not as an immobile object but as a material capable of surprising and vibrating in the present.
In The Song of the Olive Trees, Alex Camilleri transforms a journey through Malta into an inner adventure, driven by the landscapes of the archipelago and the voices that inhabit them. After the death of her mother, Mar discovers she must find inherited lands, even as she considers leaving the island. This concrete quest gradually becomes an unexpected detour: the young woman meets Nenu, a għana singer, whose presence shifts the narrative into a territory where memory, anger, and transmission intersect.
Through their exchanges, the film reveals a Maltese musical tradition based on improvisation, repartee, and the power of words. The għana duels possess the energy of a confrontation, but also the freedom of play. Nenu initiates Mar into this oral art, which passes from one generation to the next without freezing. For her, singing becomes a way to give form to what she struggles to express: her feeling of being misunderstood, her desire for independence, and her anxieties about the future.
The duo brings together two temperaments and two ages that everything seems to separate at first. Nenu, a singular figure and guardian of a living heritage, brings a mischievous light to the film. In front of him, Mar reveals a restrained intensity, then discovers a voice that belongs to her. Their meeting does not erase their differences; it rather opens a space for dialogue, where humor and music become bridges between their experiences.
Alex Camilleri thus films an island traversed by tensions: between tradition and modernization, attachment and departure, family heritage and personal freedom. The softness of the landscapes does not erase Mar’s discomfort nor the uncertainties weighing on her generation. In this balance between melancholy and vitality, song acts as a memory in motion, shaped by those who take it up. Its resonances accompany Mar’s journey, while Maltese culture asserts its presence at the very heart of change.
