Romeria (in-person & online)

Llúcia Garcia, Mitch Martin, Tristán Ulloa, Miryam Gallego

New from acclaimed writer-director Carla Simón – whose previous films Alcarràs and Summer 1993 both played at Screening Days – the tender, sorrowful Romeria (‘pilgrimage’) follows a young woman (and budding filmmaker) on a voyage of discovery about her late parents. Like Summer 1993, it’s a directly autobiographical work drawn from Simón’s own family history, but this time with an older protagonist, who’s on the cusp of adulthood when new information throws her sense of self into flux.

Orphaned at a young age, 18-year-old Marina (Llúcia Garcia) must travel to Vigo on Spain’s Atlantic coast to obtain a signature for a scholarship application from the paternal grandparents she has never met. There, she navigates a sea of new aunts, uncles and cousins, uncertain whether she will be embraced or met with resistance. Uncovering long-buried emotions and unspoken wounds from the past, Marina pieces together fragmented and often contradictory memories of the parents she barely remembers.