Romería

Marina (Llúcia Garcia), an orphan from a young age, has just turned 18 and intends to pursue a university scholarship in Barcelona. The application, however, requires the signatures of her paternal grandparents, which means that she must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast and seek out the family she has never met. With her mother’s old diary as her only guide, Marina returns to her parents’ hometown of Vigo, where she finds herself caught in a confusing swirl of new experiences, buried emotions, and fragmented memories.

Following her Golden Bear-winning Alcarràs (VIFF 2022), Spanish auteur Carla Simón returns to the semi-autobiographical roots of Summer 1993 (VIFF 17) with this imaginative film about the vicissitudes of time and memory. Titled after the Spanish word for pilgrimage, Romería renders Marina’s coming-of-age journey through a sensuous array of textures and modes, interweaving scenes of family drama with a lo-fi video diary and flights into the fantastic. It’s a film that lies suspended between the mystery of what was and visions of what might have been.