Little Lucas grew up with flamenco rhythms. Almost everyone in his family is a musician. But if your own father is your guitar teacher, and also the band leader of Ketama, the most successful flamenco group in Spain, then it may be better to switch to another instrument. And the 10-year-old Lucas does indeed sing superbly. About half a century ago, when his grandfather Juan Carmona was the same age as Lucas, he used to sing his way through the bars and night clubs of Andalusia to earn money for the family. After the Spanish Civil War came hard times for the Gitanos, the Spanish gypsies. For them the family is the most important thing in life – and, of course, music. And scarcely another family had such an impact on shaping the contemporary flamenco as the Carmonas.

At the age of 18 Juan left his home town of Granada to become one of the most sought after flamenco guitarist in Madrid. Naturally he brought his family to join him there later: his brother Pepe – who later went on to recordings with the great names of jazz, such as Don Cherry, and Indian musicians – and also the women who sacrificed their careers as flamenco dancers for the families, and the children. Juan toured around the world, and had precious little time for his sons, who ran the danger of falling into bad ways at the end of the 1970s in the exuberant, drug-ridden night life of Madrid. But Juan junior, his brother Antonio and later also their cousin Josemi secretly worked on their own music: electrically amplified flamenco, with Arabic, Latin American, jazz and rock elements. 

In 1986 they formed their band Ketama. After a short time their Nuevo Flamenco stormed the charts. Now they rank amongst the greatest music stars on the Iberian Peninsula, and hold concerts all over the world. This leaves little time for Lucas' guitar lessons. So he starts to sing. The Carmona clan, with its many branches, is a close knit community in Madrid. They meet each other at home or in Flamenco Tablaos or in the recording studio. Once a year they set off and drive to Granada, the city of their forefathers, where a large part of the Carmona clan still lives. Here in the old Gitano district they all meet for a big family fest. Naturally there is a big hello, food, drink and plenty to talk about. The shiny newborn children are presented to their great grandfather Miguel, who played for a pittance in the brothels of Granada during the 1930s.

In the evening they unpack the instruments. The lads demonstrate how well they can play their guitars and the girls watch the dance steps of their attractive aunts. Late at night everything culminates in the Juerga, where improvised singing spurs on the dancers. The guitarists can scarcely keep up with the staccato of the heels of the dancers, the drumming and the clapping hands. Even grandfather Juan is drawn away to the dance floor by his strikingly beautiful niece. In this wonderful night, just once a year, the musicians and dancers of the Carmona clan don't perform for their audience but for themselves instead.

In The Flamenco Clan the author and director Michael Meert, whose music films about Paco de Lucia or Pablo Casals are famous throughout the world, tells the exciting epic of four generations of a Gitano dynasty. Together with its expressive and vivacious protagonists, the film takes an internal and external journey to the archaic roots of their music in the caves of Sacromonte, which it uses as a starting point to reflect the development of contemporary flamenco and not least modern Spain.