Elena López Riera documents some of the rules and procedures of an unusual pigeon competition that takes place in her hometown, in south-eastern Spain, in which the winning pigeon is the one that can attract the only female of the flock and spend as much time as possible alongside her, in flight or on the ground. Contest referees know the birds by name – some as unusual as Ford Fiesta, Clockwork Orange or Insert Coin – and distinguish them through the garish colours their breeders paint them with. “Los Que Desean” records the dedication with which the participants, all men and from different generations, train their pigeons for a competition based not on speed but on desire, an elegant metaphor that subtly invokes the themes of masculinity and courtship in the patriarchal communities of the Mediterranean. An encounter between ancestry and contemporaneity in which traditions so familiar to the locals become extraordinary to strangers. “Los Que Desean” marks the debut of Elena López Riera in Curtas Vila do Conde. (IR)