La Muraille

The Other World

Callisto Mc Nulty
Switzerland, France | 2025 | 65 min
World premiere
Languages : Spanish, French
Subtitles : English, French

In south-eastern Spain, there is a wall separating two worlds: a healthy world, and a sick world, once deemed contagious. The sanatorium of Les Fontilles used to be a sanctuary for people suffering from leprosy. Callisto Mc Nulty criss-crosses this border seeking out witnesses from the past and present, who through their stories become the keepers of a disappearing world.

In the mountains of south-eastern Spain, there is a wall separating two worlds: a healthy world, and a sick world, once deemed contagious.
Built in 1905, the sanatorium of Les Fontilles was designed as a sanctuary for lepers. Callisto McNulty was introduced to the subject through the discovery of hundreds of “Letters from the Other World” written by a Jesuit, detailing his visits there between 1913 and 1924. In a place that is now open and reconnected to the neighbouring village of Campell, the filmmaker travels along this frontier to meet witnesses of the past and present. Inhabitants, sanatorium residents and the establishment's employees bear witness, on camera, to this place defined by disease, long associated with the fear of contamination and, by extension, of the difference of others and their "monstrosity". They become the storytellers of a vanishing world, of a spiritual utopia built to heal souls. Between these two porous worlds, Callisto McNulty's discreet but obstinate listening takes the form of a visiting spectre, attentive to the murmurs that reverberate within the space.
Aurélien Marsais

La Muraille, 2025
Delphine et Carole, 2019