Aguilar Castle occupies a low rocky spur rising from the vineyards of the Corbières, in the south of France. It belongs to the group of upland fortresses widely known today as the Cathar castles, strongholds caught up in the wars that reshaped Languedoc in the Middle Ages before passing into royal hands. Rebuilt and reinforced under the French crown, Aguilar became part of a chain of garrisons watching the border with the kingdom of Aragon, a frontier that ran through these hills until the political map of the Pyrenees was redrawn and the castles lost their purpose. What survives is a concentric plan: an inner keep enclosed by an outer curtain wall with half-round towers, arrow slits framing the horizon, and a chapel built into the defences. The film uses aerial photography to make the military logic legible, tracing sightlines from tower to tower across the garrigue, and returns at ground level to the texture of dry-stone masonry, wind and light.
