Santoalla: The Galician Rural Crime That Inspired 'As Bestas'

Santoalla: The Communal Land Dispute That Ended in a Shooting

What happens when a foreign couple buys a house in a dying Galician village and discovers that the communal land they believed was theirs is controlled by a single neighbor? In Santoalla, a 2016 documentary, and in the film As Bestas, which draws inspiration from the case, the answer is a years-long conflict that ends with a gunshot. The true story took place in a village in Galicia where a couple of Dutch origin settled in a house surrounded by abandonment, while the only remaining neighbor with rights to the communal land was unwilling to share anything.

Communal Land: An Institution Few Understand

In Galicia, communal land (monte comunal) is governed by customary law rooted in Germanic traditions: ownership is collective and indivisible, and decisions are made in assembly. One cannot claim a specific portion of trees or terrain. Buying a house in a village with communal land does not automatically grant rights over it, but if one moves there and meets the requirements, one may eventually join the community. This was the friction point that sparked the conflict.

In the Santoalla case, the sole remaining neighbor had gradually absorbed the rights of those who left. When the Dutch couple arrived, the distribution of income from forestry—mainly eucalyptus—changed. What once belonged to one person now had to be shared between two. The film As Bestas alters some details: in fiction, the dispute revolves around wind turbines, but in reality, according to various accounts, the Dutch man suggested installing them, and the neighbors refused.

The Official Version and the Fine Print

The 2016 documentary Santoalla antiestéticatures testimonies and home videos from the protagonist himself. In it, the widow admits her husband acted somewhat independently and did not do enough to integrate. The award-winning film As Bestas offers a more black-and-white version: the newcomers are the good guys, and the neighbors—a family described as violent and closed-off—are the bad ones. This simplification has been criticized by those familiar with the actual case.

Some argue the conflict was not purely economic: there were also disputes over land use, grazing, and resource management. The Dutch couple wanted to exercise rights they believed were theirs, but the community did not recognize them. Tensions escalated: threats, poisoning of crops, killing of animals. None of this was resolved through legal channels.

The Outcome and the Village's Reaction

The Dutch man disappeared. His body was not found until years later, accidentally, during search operations related to historical memory. The sole neighbor was convicted of murder. The film As Bestas recreates that suffocating atmosphere but takes liberties that, according to some analyses, distort reality to favor an urban, pogre narrative over the rural world.

The story has been interpreted as an example of coexistence problems in "Empty Spain" (España vaciada), but also as a warning against idealizing rural life. Not everything is community and mutual support: sometimes isolation and lack of social control create power dynamics that are very difficult to break.

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In the end, the question is not who fired the shot, but why no one saw it coming. Or perhaps they did see it and looked away.